You Were Always On My Mind
by greenstuff2
Summary: A very long way from home, he's unhappy about the mission and she detests soldiers, so how can they possibly be friends
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: As usual all rights to TG and the BBC

Prologue

"Someone loves you Molls"

Belinda smiled as she handed the bouquet to her daughter, it was huge, yellow, pink and white, sunflowers and chrysanthemums, lilies and rose buds, carnations and greenery, all hand tied with raffia inside layers of stiff coloured cellophane ….. and she didn't want them.

"You can 'ave 'em Mum"

"Don't be daft, they're lovely, just look at them"

"I've got nothing to put them in and nowhere to put 'em"

"You sure? These must of cost someone a bleeding fortune"

Belinda buried her nose in the bouquet and sniffed, trying to see whether the flowers had any scent which, of course, they hadn't. Molly could have told her that looking for perfume in a bunch of hot house flowers, no matter how big or how beautiful, or even how expensive they were, was bound to be an exercise in disappointment, pretty much like everything connected with the sender of the flowers.

"There's a card here, aren't you gonna read it?"

"Give it 'ere"

Molly took the card and after a bit of a struggle managed to rip it in half, throwing the two halves in the bin without even opening the envelope to look at it. She didn't need to look to see who'd sent them or to read what was written on the card, she already knew.

It was well after midnight when she crept out of the bedroom she was sharing with her younger sister and tiptoed downstairs through the darkened house to the kitchen, crossing her fingers that the bin hadn't been emptied yet, a very unlikely scenario because the bin didn't normally get emptied until it was so full the lid wouldn't close. She rooted around in the eggshells, used tea bags and slimy potato peelings until she found the two halves of the card, still in their respective bits of the envelope and took them out, wiped the stray bits of gunk off them and read the words on the card, then smiled.

-OG-

"Right, listen up fellas"

The two rows of squaddies sitting facing each other across the aisle of the noisy, rattling transport plane sat up straight, turned off whatever they were busy doing or watching on their mobiles, put away their Kindles or were nudged awake by their immediate neighbours and prepared themselves to listen to the boss. His announcement was very welcome, meaning as it did that they were nearing their destination, the journey had been tedious and uncomfortable.

"An hour outside, so gear on, no need for helmets but we'll review that when we're on the ground. Remember, gentlemen, this is a refugee situation, these people are displaced from their homes and whatnot, they are not, repeat not, insurgents, well not according to the politicians and civil servants sitting on their backsides behind their nice warm desks in Whitehall they're not, and it's our job to make sure that no harm comes to a hair of anyone's head"

He knew he sounded cynical, and that was because he was …. very. All the way along he'd been exceedingly sceptical that they would be able to prevent any member of the so-called Islamic State from slipping through security precautions at the UNHCR refugee camp on the Turkish/Syrian border, and all the assurances that none had already got through to hide among the vast numbers of people currently pouring into the camp looking for asylum, were, in his opinion, quite frankly laughable. No-one could be absolutely certain of anything, least of all that.

"Don't forget that there are a number of UN aid workers in the camp, mainly girls and women, and it is our job to look out for them at the same time, to keep them safe, but not to touch any of them, are you listening lads? Fingers? Dangles? They are strictly out of bounds so if any of you cockwombles decides it would be a good idea to lay a finger on one, or anything else you might have in mind, don't! Not unless you want to be on a charge and on the first plane out on your way back home"

"What's the difference between girls and women, Boss?

"Bloody funny, Fingers"

He glared at the self-appointed comedian of the group, who didn't need any encouragement at all, as one of the others yelled "About ten years" and someone else pitched in with "Gratitude" so that a gale of tension dispersing laughter swept along the lines of squaddies sitting in extreme noisy discomfort.

"It really doesn't matter does it, because you won't be getting anywhere near any of them, will you?"

"No Boss"

"Fine, just as long as we understand each other"

The Captain took his seat at the end of the row and looked across at the faces of the young soldiers sitting on the opposite side of the cabin, this was not the sort of active service he was used to, or that any of the lads were used to either. He knew that the more seasoned veterans amongst them saw it pretty much the same way he did, even though he couldn't say so out loud, that it was a futile exercise in pretending to play nanny to hordes of people in transit, playing to the world's media in effect. They were under-resourced, under-trained and under-prepared and would be completely ineffective in the event of any sort of attack being launched, there weren't enough of them and there were far too many potential victims of collateral damage for the use of weapons of any sort. Even one casualty would be too many for the bleeding heart liberals in the media.

-OG-

The wind was blowing hard across the exposed runway of the American run air base at Incirlik, and it was bitterly cold with tiny gritty granules of snow and ice crystals scouring the exposed skin of their faces. Captain James knew that most of the squaddies hadn't believed a single word of the warnings they'd been given that it would be very cold at this time of the year, because everyone knew that Turkey was hot, it was where you went for your summer holidays, wasn't it? It was bloody ideal for lazing around on a beach all day before spending the evening visiting the bars and restaurants of the resort to get pissed and pick up girls.

"Fucking Nora, it's bleeding cold out here"

"Now, now, now" Brains wagged one finger in the squaddie's direction "Didn't you hear what the bossman said? We're not allowed to fuck anyone, not even Nora"

"Oh you're so bleeding funny?"

"Lads, lads, that'll do, remember we're supposed to be ambassadors here for fuck's sake"

Corporal Easter, the replacement for Kinders, had to raise his voice over the gale of laughter, completely failing to register the anomaly of his own use of bad language as they made their straggling way towards the coach which was waiting with its door open, ready to take them out to the camp.

Captain James stood off slightly during the exchange as he waited for his driver, an American Marine, to finish his conversation with the Major who'd just got out of the Military Land Rover and who was obviously about to depart, if his kit bag and hand luggage was anything to go. The Captain was destined for the NATO Command Centre to give and be given the once-over by the American Colonel who was in overall charge on the ground, in effect his boss for the next six months.

-OG-

"Bloody hell, this is a bit of a piss hole, isn't it?"

The coach had slowed to a virtual crawl as they'd entered the camp, the driver had to go exceedingly slowly, at little more than walking pace, to avoid mowing down some of the hundreds of pedestrians, men, women and children who were walking down the middle of the road carrying their belongings, some of them carrying stuff in small hand carts or babies' pushchairs, some of them with bundles of it weighing them down in both hands or on their backs, people who were jam packed in a crowd making its snail paced way towards a porta-cabin which had the UNHCR blue flag flying above it. There were a number of people wearing the blue tabards of the UN mingling in amongst the crowd, darting backwards and forwards helping to keep the mass of people on the move. Some of them were carrying children, some of them were helping old people to keep going and they were all, without exception, as the Captain had said, female. None of them were taking a blind bit of notice of the coach load of newly arrived British soldiers.

"Where the fuck do they all come from?"

The squaddies were obviously unprepared for the sheer numbers of the people they could see making their way into the camp with its rows of tents stretching away into the distance as far as the eye could see.

"United Nations of course, you prat"

"Not the totty, wanker, I weren't talking about the totty, I was talking about the rest of them, but I just hope those tents have got some sort of central heating, its pissing cold here and them kids look a bit parky to me"

"Of course they don't have central heating, they're tents, tent's don't have radiators, tosser"

"I know tents don't have heating, don't I? I was just saying, that's all …."

"Lads, lads, that'll do" Corporal Easter did his best to pour some oil on the troubled water that was beginning to escalate on the bus "Everyone needs to calm down"

"Never mind the kids, I'm bloody parky, me"

"Mansfield, for fuck's sake, mate"

"I never meant that I don't care about the kids, of course I do, I was just hoping that I remembered to pack me bleeding thermals, that's all"

"Didn't your mum do your packing for you then?"

There was a ripple of laughter and not for the first time Easter wondered whether Mansfield was as thick as he sometimes seemed, or whether he'd just deliberately deflected the ill feeling that had started to build at the sight of the miserable tide of humanity on the other side of the windows.

"Yeah of course she did, but she's probably packed my trunks and factor 50, she thinks Turkey's hot, doesn't she?"

"What the place or Christmas dinner?"

"Bloody funny you lot, aren't you? I bet most of you were the same as my Mum, thought it was hot here, didn't you?" Easter again wondered about Mansfield Mike's motives, especially as he'd just given his tormentors the finger, but had, nevertheless, successfully changed the focus of the conversation and the atmosphere in the bus.

-OG-

"It's not a lot bloody warmer in here is it?"

The tent was long, standard army canvas accommodation, with its camp beds, each with a pillow and a single blanket and absolutely fine in places like Afghan, hot countries, with 40 odd degree heat in the summer, but not so wonderful in the minus temperatures of the winter chill in Turkey or Syria. It was draughty, cold and clammy as the sleety rain outside turned to snow.

"Fucking hell I hate to think what the shitters and showers are like"

"Probably won't want to hang about in there"

Brains laughed at the expressions on the faces of his mates as they contemplated stripping off to stand under a jet of water that would, if they were exceptionally lucky, be warm enough for a shower that would last at least 30 seconds from beginning to end.

"I just hope the water isn't frozen"

"Lads" The Corporal was calling them to stand to attention as the Captain appeared in the doorway of the tent and nodded in acknowledgement as they were told to stand easy.

"Briefing, Ops tent 30 minutes" he turned to Easter, "I presume there is a bloody Ops tent here somewhere?" He jerked his head indicating for Easter to follow him as he left, he'd been in the camp for less than fifteen minutes and was totally appalled at what he'd seen so far. It bore no relation to the NATO Command centre where he'd spent the early part of the afternoon listening to American smartasses state their fairy tale assessments of the current situation and talk longingly of the day they hoped was coming soon, when they'd be given the go ahead to start bombing the fuck out of villages near to here to get at ISIS, or so they hoped.

He'd checked out his own accommodation, a cursory glance as he dumped his kit, it was part of a divided porta-cabin, one in a group of three such cabins behind the reception. Effectively it was a small metal box with an even smaller shower and lavatory, a cabin which was to double up during the day as the office and, being metal, would be even colder than a tent and the colder it got outside, the more condensation there'd be and the damper it would get inside. It reminded him of an office on a used car lot or the one on the building site where he'd recently bought his flat in Guildford.

What appalled him most wasn't the basic accommodation or even the facilities, although they were bad enough, he could foresee a whole lot of unshaven, unwashed and stinking squaddies complaining bitterly about having to use latrines where the water for the flush and the urinals was frozen, which was a fairly lovely prospect in itself, but, what appalled him most was the never ending flood of people walking slowly towards the reception in the half dusk. People who showed no emotion at all at the conditions, they just seemed resigned as they trudged along in steadily falling snow without looking to the right or to the left, and not even the children showed any interest whatsoever in the Land Rover or the Marine who had driven him here. How the bloody hell were they supposed to protect this lot, together with all the people wearing blue tabards, when their numbers were miniscule in comparison to the numbers you'd need to carry out the task they were here to perform?

-OG-

"Right lads, listen up, there's some credible intel from the Americans, or so they reckon, that an attack could be imminent, and according to them it's more likely to come from inside than anywhere else, so Kevlar for everyone, including UN staff. There are some UN vests in the stores, wherever the hell they are" He turned "Easter, your job, find and sort please, and lads, it's your job to make sure they've all got one and that they're all wearing them, okay? Remember stay focussed, and you all know the rest"

"Yes Boss"

The chorus was fairly muted, most of the men, there were no females in the deployed sections, were cold, tired and hungry and almost all of them hated the thought of wearing the Kevlar bullet-proof vests all day. Wearing one while you were out on a patrol was a necessary evil, but this job meant that there weren't any patrols as such, only inside the camp, and although the vests were effective against most one-to-one attacks, they were uncomfortable to wear and ineffective against anything below the hip or above the neck.

-OG-

It was another grey, bitterly cold morning, although the snow had stopped and turned back to sleet when he walked from the mess tent towards his office and saw two of the section standing a short distance away on the muddy footpath, apparently engaged in a violent argument with a tiny girl wearing a blue tabard. A very slight, dark-haired girl with a single long plait falling down her back between her shoulder blades, an English girl judging from her voice, a girl who seemed to be in a foul temper about something as she yelled at the two soldiers at the top of her voice, using extremely colourful language.

"Nah, how many more times do I have to pissing well tell you, cos I've already told you twice haven't I? You deaf or summat? Just fuck off the pair of you and take that bleeding thing with you"

"It's for your own safety, Miss, we've been told that everyone has to wear one, that there might be an attack, it's to stop you from getting hurt"

"What?" She sounded incredulous "One of me nippers got a gun in his nappy has he? or maybe his mum is gonna have a knife up her sleeve?" She snorted a derisive laugh down her nose "Listen, moron, I'm sticking needles in kids this morning, so I don't need a sodding stab vest and I'm not bleeding wearing one, anyhow you've done your job, you've told me now and I'm not taking any notice, so you know what you can do with it, don't you?"

The Captain walked over and stood with his legs apart behind the girl, folding his arms across his chest and tucking his hands under his armpits, a favourite stance when he needed to look as authoritative as possible, and asked quietly and politely whether there was a problem, which caused her to spin round, she hadn't heard him approaching on the muddy surface of the pathway. She narrowed her eyes as she glared at him, a huge pair of sea green eyes, eyes that were blazing with anger.

"Oh look, its bleeding Rambo, be alright now he's here, won't we"

"I beg your pardon?"

He decided not to notice the hastily suppressed sniggers from the squaddies or the way they both suddenly found their feet fascinating to look at.

"You heard me, and listen mate, you can fuck off as well and take these two muppets with you, I'm not wearing any of this … " She paused and then pointed to the bullet proof vest "bleeding stuff, not for you, not for them, not for no-one. I'm gonna vaccinate kids today, stop 'em getting the measles, and none of them are gonna stab me, or shoot me or nothing, so why don't you lot just sod off and go and play soldiers somewhere else"

"Thank you for the advice" He used the most sarcastic tone of voice he could find and took a deep breath "As my men have said, we'd strongly advise you wear the vest, but we can't force you, so we're very sorry to have bothered you, Miss …?"

He raised one hand inviting her to supply her name, an invitation she completely ignored, so that he leaned forward slightly to read her name badge "Miss Dawes" then nodded his head in acknowledgment and half turned towards the two men. Despite his ultra-polite manner and the measured and calm tone of his voice, he was actually seething with barely suppressed anger; it had been a very long time since he'd come across anyone who was quite as rude as she was. She turned on her heel and walked away, dropping the Kevlar vest onto the muddy ground behind her as she went.

"Nice girl" Dangles made no attempt to hide the sarcastic tone of his voice as he raised his eyebrows and snorted a laugh "Wonder what her problem is? I was just thinking" He pretended to be mulling over his options "Do you think I should offer to help her out with it?" Fingers laughed and added "Nice arse though"

"Lads!" There was a strong note of warning in the Captain's voice, but the girl had obviously heard what they were saying as she walked away and proceeded to give them the finger behind her back as she carried on walking, and he shook his head and stood stock still, watching her as she went.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: I know, I know, I'm addicted to my parallel universe, not even a disobedient, downright naughty and completely adorably gorgeous puppy can distract me for long. Hope you enjoy it, please let me know.**_


	2. Chapter 2

The noise of a disturbance drew him towards the main gates, it was very early in the morning, not yet fully light and the overcast sky and intermittent sleet of the day before had turned into a heavy drenching downpour which was adding considerably to the misery of the newly arrived refugees massing outside the gates of the compound which had, as usual, been closed and locked overnight. Despite the fact that dawn was only just breaking, the aid workers were already hard at work, busy moving about between groups of people, talking, listening and occasionally crouching down as they did their best to assess urgent needs and priorities, and all of the workers, with one notable exception, were wearing their blue bullet proof vests.

"Silly bitch"

His irritation with her quickly escalated to the same level as it had done every time he'd seen her walking around totally ignoring him and his advice, behaving as if she was making some point or other. As he watched her she began shepherding a woman with a baby and two other very small children out of the crush of people and onto the road leading them through the recently opened gates and into the camp. She bent and picked up one of the children and held a hand out for the other to hold, and then the little trio walked straight past him, with her apparently ignoring him completely, determinedly looking the other way and concentrating all her attention on the woman walking next to her with a baby in her arms. For some reason he took great pleasure in knowing that she'd just done that deliberately in order to make some sort of point, a childish action that made him put his head down and give a little wry smile to himself, little Miss Attitude wasn't quite as indifferent as she would like people to believe.

"What's going on, Boss?" Corporal Easter had arrived at his shoulder, curiosity written all over his face.

"I have no idea" He went over to speak to one of the women wearing an aid worker's vest, not Miss Attitude, but a much older woman who, he assumed, had more seniority and was therefore more likely to have better manners. After a few minutes conversation he returned to Easter who was now surrounded by a group of the men who were all standing together to one side of the muddy pathway.

"Some bastards bloody bombed Aleppo last night, pretty sure it wasn't us or even the yanks, but I'll need to find out for sure just in case they did it without telling us which would be pretty cretinous even for them. Anyway, Christ knows what they were aiming at, because all they've achieved is to make another few million people homeless by the looks of it" He pulled a face "Ops Room, briefing, thirty minutes"

-OG-

"Watch their faces, especially when they catch sight of you, see if anyone has a look of, I don't know, being wrong, being uncomfortable because you're there watching them, it's unlikely that it's going to be a family with children, but not impossible obviously, or for it to be one of the old people, but again not impossible. Do _not_ assume that because someone is female and smiles at you nicely that they're not a terrorist, same goes for anyone who's crying, so particularly watch the young, single people, the blokes and the girls arriving on their own, check their papers if you're in any doubt at all, and if you're still not sure, get them to stand off to one side until one of us can come and take a look" He indicated Corporal Easter "It doesn't hurt to let them see that you're a bit suspicious, but polite at all times please gentlemen, they're not suspected terrorists"

"What, even if we think they are?"

"Yup, even if we think they are, so stay focussed, stay alert, stay alive, it's just as bloody important here as it was in any FOB, maybe more. Watching, being as sure as we fucking well can be that ISIS aren't infiltrating is as crucial as keeping the Taliban away was in Afghan. Any questions?" He looked around at the faces staring at him, they could all recognise the enormity of the task that was facing them, most of them had seen the crush waiting outside the main gates half an hour or so earlier "Oh and it was the Russians that bombed them last night, not us."

"Shit, are we fighting them or are they on our side?"

"God only knows, the liaison Major at Command obviously didn't when I spoke to him, not that he'd admit it, being a Yank, so it's the usual sort of Anglo-American co-operation, officially a so-called 'need to know' basis and apparently I don't need to know" He laughed ruefully at the expressions of resigned deja vu on the faces of the men who'd taken part in joint operations with the Americans when they'd all been in Afghanistan. Nothing changed.

-OG-

The pounding rain had been relentless all day, so that by late afternoon the untarmacked surface of the road was the consistency of soup as the steady flood of people kept on walking through liquid mud. The aid workers kept on going backwards and forwards tirelessly sorting the highest priority groups from the rest, even though, and in spite of their plastic ponchos, they were all soaked from head to toe and had filthy muddy legs and feet and they all shared the same look of total exhaustion on their pale faces.

Captain James stood with Corporal Easter and watched for some time as they carried out the same task as the men and, as he'd instructed the men to do, concentrated on looking closely at the faces of the people trudging past. They both knew just how difficult it would be for anyone, themselves included, to isolate a potential terrorist as the people passing them nearly all had an identical look on their faces, a sort of weary resignation which would make it very difficult, if not well-nigh impossible, to identify anyone who might have trouble as a motive.

As he watched the hundreds of people walking past he noticed the Dawes girl walking away from the porta-cabin, she was easily identifiable amongst the aid workers, she was not only much smaller, looked almost like a kid from this distance she was so much shorter than any of the others, but she was, to his utter frustration and he admitted to himself, fury, still determinedly risking her safety by mingling with the huge crowd without wearing any form of body armour at all, unlike all the others who obviously had more sense. He had no intention of saying anything else to her about it, there was no way he was going to give her another opportunity to get abusive, and as things stood she was quite right, it was totally her own choice, even if it was a remarkably stupid one, but she wasn't one of his, so if she chose to ignore his advice he could afford to smile about it, at the same time as being very grateful for small mercies.

"What you done to yourself?"

He hadn't noticed her coming and standing anywhere near him; he had been concentrating solely on looking at faces for, well, who knew? Just that indefinable something that would set the alarm bells ringing.

"Pardon?"

He turned sharply to look at the pale face with its green eyes which were red-rimmed, the hair that was so soaking wet and limp that it was clinging to her neck with the rainwater dripping down her back and a face that was covered in splashes of mud. She looked totally exhausted, but then they probably all did, the aid workers had started their working day well before dawn and it was almost dark now. He had a feeling that there hadn't been much opportunity for them to take breaks, unlike the lads, who had done shifts of two hours on and half an hour off, these workers had been helping the relentless tide of people all day, apparently without stopping. He wasn't being difficult or pretending that he hadn't heard her as some sort of pay-back for her previous behaviour, he had genuinely been paying such close attention to what he was watching that he didn't know what she'd just said.

"I said, what you done to yourself? But it don't matter if you don't wanna say, I were just asking"

She turned as if to walk away as he wondered what the hell she was talking about.

"I'm sorry; I haven't got a clue what you're talking about"

"Your leg, what have you done to it? It seemed like it might be hurting cos you was rubbing it just now and you was limping earlier, so I wondered if you'd been to the medical tent, they can have a butcher's for you, give you some pain meds or a plaster or whatever"

"Oh that, no, it's fine, it's just an old injury that hurts a bit sometimes, that's all, nothing to worry about, thanks for asking"

He was surprised that she'd noticed him rubbing his leg or limping, he hadn't been aware he'd been doing either, and he'd have put money on her being completely unaware or, if she had noticed, being totally disinterested.

"I weren't _worrying,_ I were just saying that's all, but you know what, it's nothing to do with me, mate"

By the time he realised that she'd misinterpreted what he'd said, or the way he'd said it anyway, she was already walking away so that he was left with a choice of letting it go, or trying to explain the historic nature of the pain which still afflicted him from time to time, especially when he'd been standing still in one place for too long or when the weather was as cold and wet as it was at that moment. It was a pain that he usually went to great lengths to disguise and he hid it because he had no wish for any of the powers that be to find out about the residual problems he had with that leg. The fact that a stranger and one who patently disliked him for some reason, in fact, as far as he could tell she'd avoided looking at him at all, had noticed it so easily and so clearly was more than a little troubling.

He walked after her as fast as his leg would let him, he was doing his best to ignore the fact that the dull ache he'd had most of the day had now turned into a real pain as he struggled to catch her up.

"Miss Dawes, wait out a second"

She slowed her pace but didn't actually stop and look at him, just slowed right down. The mud was extremely unpleasant and difficult to walk on, alternately sucking his boots down into it or allowing them to slip and slide as he attempted to stride out and catch up with her, so that he wanted to shout "Oh, for fuck's sake, just wait a minute, will you?"

"I didn't mean to make it sound as if I was being flippant or as if I'm some sort of martyr, I got injured when I was in Afghan and it really is fine most of the time, just sometimes when it's cold as it is today it plays me up a bit" which he thought must just about be the understatement of the century.

"What happened?"

"I got shot"

"Ouch" She screwed up her nose "What, your leg?"

"Yep, and in my stomach"

"Shit" She gave an exaggerated wince "Mind you, if you will keep on playing bleeding soldiers with real guns and real bullets" She shrugged "People are bound to get hurt aren't they?"

He found himself wanting to laugh even though she'd just done her best to insult him again with her attitude towards soldiers in general and him in particular, he had never before had anyone tell him that he was to blame for what the Taliban had done to him, that what had happened was his own fault because they hadn't been playing nicely. He started biting his bottom lip in an attempt to keep a straight face; if she saw him laughing she would almost certainly misinterpret it.

"First of all, we weren't playing with anything, especially not guns or bullets, nor were we _playing_ at being soldiers; it was the Taliban that shot me and they don't play, end of story"

"Okay, calm down, keep your bleeding hair on"

He was slightly gratified to see what he thought was a little smile on her face as she speeded up and walked away from him, back towards the never ending stream of people that were flooding through the gates towards the reception centre, leaving him to resume his exercise in people watching. He was even more gratified when he saw her give a tiny fleeting glance backwards over her shoulder to where he was standing watching her walk away before he, too, turned back to watch the never-ending stream of faces of the people walking past, totally ignoring Easter's look of curiosity as he did so.

-OG-

It was almost pitch dark when another row broke out between the men and the aid workers, although it wasn't with Miss Attitude this time, she was nowhere to be seen. He had given the order that the gates had to be shut as usual, albeit very reluctantly, but it was a definite security issue that they couldn't hope to keep anyone safe if the gates were left wide open when it was dark. He knew that if he was in the shoes of an insurgent of any kind, he would use darkness as ideal cover for getting inside the camp, but unfortunately there were still crowds of people making their way towards them and the aid workers didn't want anyone to be left outside for the night.

He had an extremely long and frustrating telephone conversation with the UNHCR Chief who was based at the Centre in Ankara, a conversation that eventually resulted in a compromise which the woman obviously found deeply unsatisfactory. Anyone who was sick or who needed treatment for an injury, or anyone with children in tow would be identified by the aid workers and escorted into the camp by his men. Everyone else would be given food and blankets and sheets of plastic to give them some rudimentary means of sheltering from the rain that showed absolutely no sign of easing off and which was, in fact, turning more and more to sleet as the temperatures dropped.

Little Miss Dawes had re-appeared and was busy handing out food, blankets and plastic sheeting, together with bottled water to the people stoically queuing up outside the gates. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, furious that she was still obviously refusing to wear one of the bullet proof vests that everyone else was wearing. The risk to her personal safety was increasing with every degree of darkness and he had this feeling that she was now just being stubborn and obstinate about it, but also that she didn't seem aware of just how bloody stupid she was being or of how much danger she was putting herself in. He watched until he couldn't stand it a minute longer, went to the stores, picked up a UN vest and walked back to where she was standing, then risked an abusive mouthful as he tapped her on her shoulder without saying a word, and held the vest out towards her.

For a couple of moments she hesitated as she obviously considered giving him another outright refusal or a mouthful of Dawes style abuse, then maybe read something in the expression on his face and took the vest from his outstretched hand, and nodded.

"Thanks"

He nodded back at her and caught his bottom lip in his teeth, doing his best not to smile as she put the vest on, he didn't want to appear to be in any way triumphant because he didn't feel as though he'd won some sort of battle, he was just relieved that she'd finally seen sense.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for the kind comments in your reviews, I suffered the usual doubts and agonies of indecision as to whether to publish or not, those of you out there who write will know what I'm talking about, I'm pretty sure that it's not just me, so, as always, I badly need the feedback to keep me going.**_

 _ **I meant to say yesterday that I received the bouquet in question, but mine was from my brother who'd missed my birthday, it was absolutely beautiful, and was a lovely thought and really sweet of him, but oh how I wish ….**_

-OG-


	3. Chapter 3

"Better today then?" She sipped from a plastic cup and turned to look at him over the rim of it.

"What is?"

"Your leg, Rambo, what did you think I meant, the bloody weather?"

"Actually, the weather is a bit better this morning, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Sarky bugger" She laughed as she said it, to show him that, surprisingly on past showing, she wasn't pissed at him.

"And please don't call me that" He snorted a short laugh "The lads won't let me live it down as it is"

He'd avoided commenting on his leg, which was still aching, still full of a dull discomfort and smiled down at her, thinking that she wasn't the sort of girl that appealed to him in the least, even though he could see that she was actually pretty when she wasn't glaring at him in a foul temper or exhausted and plastered in mud. She was far too small for someone as tall as him for a start and she wasn't blonde, she also had too much of a mouth on her, was too feisty by half and swore like a trooper, in fact her language was as bad as any squaddie he'd come across. Since his break up with Rebecca all his girls had been blonde, like Rebecca, tall and slim with long legs, also like Rebecca, but, and completely unlike Rebecca, they had all been soft and quiet and very undemanding. Yet, here he was, standing next to her having to do his absolute level best to try and forget what Fingers had said about her arse.

"What does the 'M' stand for?"

"What?"

"The 'M' on your name badge, what does it stand for?"

He indicated the badge that was pinned to her sleeve; she was wearing the dreaded Kevlar, so that there was nowhere to pin it on her chest.

"Miss"

"What?"

"You heard, Miss, it stands for Miss" She looked up at him over the rim of her cup again, green eyes full of mischief, then giggled before she relented "Molly, me name's Molly, but you can call me Miss Dawes"

"Oh thanks that's good of you"

"I thought so" She smirked "Come on then, what's yours, unless you want me to keep on calling you Rambo?"

"James, its Captain James"

"So, are you Captain James or Captain James summat?"

"No, I'm Charles, Captain Charles James, but you can call me Captain James ….. "

"Thanks a bunch"

"You're welcome"

They were standing by the main gates again watching the stragglers as the flood of refugees finally slowed to a trickle and the rain had relented, meaning that everyone was in a far better frame of mind than they had been the day before. He'd caught sight of her as soon as he'd come out of his office and had made his way deliberately towards where she was standing sipping something from a plastic cup, he'd had every intention of saying how pleased he was that she'd seen sense and decided to wear a vest, but then he'd thought better of it. He couldn't be sure that she wouldn't just rip it off and throw it on the floor if he said something that could be construed as patronising, but to his amazement he now found that he was quite enjoying himself sparring with her, she didn't seem to have any respect for rank or authority, but she was making him want to laugh and to carry on talking to her. And the longer he stood there talking to her, the more he recognised that he'd been wrong, that she wasn't pretty, she was actually quite beautiful.

Their observe and isolate exercise of the day before had resulted in them checking the papers and identities of nearly a hundred so-called refugees or asylum seekers or whatever it was they were calling them today, all of whom, of course, were pleading absolute innocence and in a lot of instances, tearful ignorance, none of which cut any ice with him at all. He didn't believe a word any of them said, and although he appreciated that some, or even all, of them could be telling the truth, his natural cynicism and inner radar for trouble was screaming _if in doubt, say no._ What worried him more was that they had no idea how much potential trouble had slipped in hidden amongst the thousands of Syrian civilians who were the innocent victims of the violence, and as nearly all the people in the camp were destined for lives in Europe, the thought was deeply worrying.

He couldn't see any point in him talking to them again, he couldn't imagine that anyone was suddenly going to throw their hands up in the air and tearfully confess that they were trying to get to Berlin or London or Paris to be a suicide bomber and blow everyone up in the name of ISIS. He'd contacted Command and they were sending American Intelligence to interview the 'suspects' who were being held in an outside compound under the watchful eye of two Section. They weren't allowed to say they were 'guarding' them, no-one was officially suspected of anything. The one good thing as far as the lads were concerned was that it was actually dry, still bitterly cold but dry, and for the first time since they'd arrived they weren't bitching and moaning about being wet.

-OG-

"Talking to your soldier again?"

Grace raised her eyebrows almost into her hairline and gave Molly a knowing smirk as they checked off an aid delivery against the inventory, glad for once to be out of the biting cold wind and to be relatively snug and warm inside the stores tent.

"He's not _my_ bleeding soldier is he? We've only had a couple of little chats, mainly him bollocking me for not wearing this sodding thing" She took off the stab vest and threw it on a chair.

"I believe you"

Grace pulled one of her deeply sceptical faces and spoke in a way that indicated that believing what Molly had just said couldn't be farther from the truth, making her laugh as she protested that Grace was wrong.

"Shut up, it's true, it were nothing, nothing important, you know what I think of bloody soldiers, and anyhow he doesn't make me bits twitch"

The American girl had become the closest friend that Molly had got amongst the aid workers; they had arrived in Turkey on the same day and were much of an age, although Grace was slightly older. She was also eight inches taller and had sheets of platinum blonde hair, a colour which turned out to owe more to genetics than, as Molly had assumed the first time they'd met, to Clairol, so that she had no roots that needed re-touching like some of their colleagues.

The two of them came from very different backgrounds and had nothing and everything in common. Grace's parents were exceedingly wealthy, 'Old Washington Money' as she'd described it, which had made Molly laugh and tell her that she didn't come from any money at all, old or otherwise and that she wouldn't care how old the bloody stuff was, she just wouldn't mind having some. On the other hand they both described themselves as 'losers' where men were concerned, Molly because she'd learned not to trust any of them as far as she could throw them and Grace because she'd never been allowed to have any sort of relationship with a man, not even a casual friendship, that wasn't sanctioned by her incredibly bossy mother. She had, in fact, only managed to escape from home because her parents saw UNHCR as a 'worthy cause', a charitable organisation that would be a finishing school for their daughter's value on the marriage market.

"You're sex mad, you know that don't you?"

"No I'm not, you don't know what I'm like and I'm not gonna tell you"

Grace looked pensive for a moment before saying peevishly "My bits have never twitched, at least I don't think they have"

"You'd know if they had, believe me"

"In that case they definitely haven't" Grace shook her head ruefully and ignored the fact that Molly was laughing at her.

"Shame" they were both giggling now "Go on, have a go at him, he's much more up your street than mine you know, he's an officer and he talks a bit posh, most likely suit you down to the bloody ground" She looked at Grace under her eyelashes, tongue firmly in cheek, she knew that the other girl was desperate to find someone who would help her avoid having to go home to the life her parents had all mapped out for her in the States.

"He's good looking, he's nice and tall, he's got nice hair and he's gotten decent teeth, all in all quite good really" Grace gave a slightly self-deprecating shrug as Molly looked at her and raised her eyebrows "Okay, so maybe I did have a small peep at him, just to check out who you were talking with"

"Only a bloody yank would look at someone's teeth first, rest of us would look at his bum"

"I looked at that as well" She laughed "But his teeth are important, and talking about important, did you look at anything else when you were up close and personal? You know, enough to judge potential"

"No I bloody well did not and I certainly weren't that close and personal either, but yeah, you're right, teeth are important, it's just that not all of us have them yanked out when we're ten and then put back in like you lot do, but you know what's best of all about him don't you?" She gave a wicked little giggle "Your Mum and Dad would love him"

"That's it, you had to go and spoil it didn't you?"

"Sorry"

They were both laughing as they went on checking off the piles of blankets and moved onto checking plastic sheets as Grace looked speculatively across at Molly again.

"How about the other soldiers? One or two of them actually look quite nice, one of them winked at me just now"

"I'm bleeding fed up, not hard up"

Grace laughed "I thought I was supposed to be the one who was too fussy"

"Well, it all depends on what you mean by nice, dunnit? I mean, yeah, some of them are quite good looking 'n that, I s'pose, not bad, but they're not nice, they're bleeding soldiers aren't they? Soldiers are not nice, you muppet"

"What's wrong with them?"

"Take it from me you're better off not going there cos if there's one thing guaranteed about soldiers, Gracie, it's that they'll crap on you from a very great height" She thought about it for a moment, then waved her arm round in a wide sweep "Anyhow, it's bleeding men playing at being soldiers that causes all this shit, innit? If they weren't all dropping bombs on one another and shooting at each other, them other poor buggers out there wouldn't be here with their kids and all their stuff would they? They'd all be back at home, the kids would be at school and they'd be doing the washing up or summat"

"Can I borrow your soapbox when you're done with it?"

"Fuck off" Molly giggled.

"Good job my mother can't hear you, Miss Dawes, she'd have me kidnapped and taken home on the first plane out of here, she would not approve of that language"

Sometimes Molly thought that Gracie was the only thing that kept her from throwing herself on her camp bed and screaming, that she was sometimes the only thing that made the place bearable. The American girl was unfailingly chirpy, with a broad grin that was all ultra-white and perfectly straight teeth, a huge collection of Elvis tracks which she was generous about sharing and Molly's over-riding memory of their time together would be Grace dancing round their quarters, clad in just about every stitch of clothing she possessed, singing American Trilogy along with Elvis, using her hairbrush as a microphone. Grace also had the most incredibly sweet, innocent and deceptively ladylike demeanour, especially when she was being downright filthy.

-OG-

"Where's your bloody vest?"

"Oh bollocks, I took it off when we was doing a stock check, I'll go and get it in a sec"

"Please, just go and get it and bloody well put it on ….. now"

They had gravitated towards each other again as he'd stood watching the Americans take one after the other of the so-called 'suspects' into his office to question them, so that he was left feeling slightly redundant as well as homeless and was just standing around drinking yet another cup of disgusting instant coffee, waiting to get back into his domain, when she'd appeared by his side, minus her Kevlar.

"Happy now?" She reappeared wearing the offending vest, albeit with exceedingly bad grace.

"Yep"

"What is it with you and these bleeding things?" She looked down at herself with disgust.

"I don't want to see you get shot or stabbed, get hurt or worse"

"Funny enough, I don't want me to get shot or stabbed neither, but I can't see why you would think anyone'd want to do that, no-one's gonna hurt me, I'm no-one, I'm just here to help, and you're just being a bloody worry wart"

"Maybe, but Molly, take my word for it okay, you'll be much safer if you're wearing it and I'll be much happier, alright?"

"Nag, nag, nag …. and its Miss Dawes to you"

"How long have you been out here …. Miss Dawes?"

"About five minutes"

"Hilarious" He couldn't help the little snort of laughter that escaped down his nose "You know what I meant"

"I was in the first lot to get here, helped set it up, so right from the off"

"Have you been doing this for long? I don't mean here but in general, I mean it can't be that long, you're too young"

"I've been doing it for a good while, I was in Jordan before we come here and before that I did me bit in Sudan, we had shed-loads of people there from Darfur"

"Bloody hell"

"What, you thought I'd just started didn't you?"

"Yes I suppose I did, think you'd just started I mean, what made you want to do it?"

"Well …. I was a Health Care Assistant back in east Ham, come to think of it I was more likely gonna need a stab vest there than here, but I wanted to get away from home, didn't I? and I saw this stuff on-line and I wanted to do summat to help, cos their lives were even more shit than mine was, and I saw that they was looking for people like me, people what can do bits of medical stuff, vaccinate kids and hand out plasters 'n that, and they wanted people who didn't mind being general dogsbodies as well, and that's me"

"Is it the way you thought it would be?"

"Nah, nothing like" She shrugged and smiled "It'll most likely be better when I've learned to talk more Arabic, but it's bleeding hard"

"You're learning Arabic?"

"Yeah, no need to sound so gobsmacked, it's so as to make it easier to talk to these poor buggers and to understand them when they talk to me" She was beginning to sound both defensive and embarrassed, as though the subject made her uncomfortable "It's no big deal" She made an obvious attempt to change the subject "So, how long you been a soldier, Mr. Nosy Bugger?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy, I'm just curious that's all"

"Same thing innit?"

"Nope, and I've been in the army now, for what, 10, no 11, years"

"Bloody hell, you must be knocking on a bit then, but don't worry you don't look it"

She laughed at the expression of mock outrage on his face as he turned round quickly to look at her again then laughed.

"Thanks ….. and I'm not that old, I'm 31, well nearly 32" He was still smiling "So how old are you, or is that being a nosy bugger again?"

"I'll be 23 in a couple of months, but you know what, and I hate being the one to tell you this, but 31 going on 32 is not that young, is it?"

"Isn't it? Shit" He shook his head still smiling "Why did you want to get away from home?"

"That _is_ being a nosy bugger again"

"Sorry, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to"

"I know …. and I'm not going to, I just wanted to get away ….. and I did, so here I am" She grinned at him again "How about you?"

"I just always wanted to be in the army, it was all I ever wanted to do"

"What, even after you was bleeding well shot?"

"Yep"

"Funny, you don't seem like a nut job, still I s'pose you can't always tell by looking, can you?"

"I'm not, well, I don't think I am" He was biting the inside of his lip in an attempt to control the smirk which was itching to escape "What do you miss most about home Molly, sorry, Miss Dawes, about London, I mean?"

"Dunno" She chewed the inside of her bottom lip as she thought about his question "Yeah I do, Dover Street Market"

"A street market?" He sounded and looked incredulous, lifting his eyebrows as he looked at her, it wasn't at all what he'd been expecting.

"It's not really a market, that's just what they call it, I mean they don't sell potatoes or dodgy burgers and 'ookey CDs and things, it's a shop, a really posh shop, would probably suit you" She grinned at him before carrying on "It's all set up like a market, a bit like a street but indoors you know, with lots of different people, designers 'n that, all having like, these stalls, and it's where I go when everything feels a bit wrong … it's me 'appy place"

He could almost see the inverted commas she'd put round the word happy and when she looked at him, she could see from the frown on his face that he didn't understand what she meant.

"I go there when me life's a bit shit and I wanna feel better about stuff so I just walk around and look at the things … . One day I'm gonna get me shit together and I'm gonna have enough money so as I can go in there and buy some'ing, it'll most likely only be a hair slide or summat, cos I'll never be able to afford nothing else, but still …" She took a deep breath "What about you, where's your favourite place?"

He thought about it for a moment "I suppose it'd be standing on the steps at the Rec watching us thrash Gloucester, or thrash anyone really" He gave a little laugh as he saw the puzzled expression on her face "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? The Recreation Ground? Bath Rugby Club? rugby?"

"Oh"

She nodded, not sure why but suddenly tempted to lie and say she was none the wiser, she had this urge to encourage him to talk about something that was close to his heart, but it wouldn't be true and she wasn't going to go there at any price, he was a soldier.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your feedback, I am glad that you are enjoying this although I know that the setting is a bit bleak and that the refugee camp sounds horrendous, but I have tried to base it as close as I can to the reality we see on tele or read about in the papers, reality that I'm sure is pretty horrible. Please carry on reviewing, it means the world to me sitting as I am on my own little planet.**_


	4. Chapter 4

It was pitch dark when the large group of people congregated by the main gates. The group included a number of the squaddies, almost all of the aid workers together with some of the refugees, and they stood in huddles and watched as a series of flashes lit up the horizon.

"How far away is that?"

Molly turned to the group of soldiers who were standing nearest to her and asked the question that most of the aid workers wanted to know the answer to, there would be a fresh flood of refugees from the bombing, but as no-one was sure where it was that was being bombed, they didn't know how long it would be before the displaced people started flooding in again. Brains was the first one to answer, although none of them knew for sure what the absolute truth was.

"I reckon that's Aleppo again or somewhere near there"

"Oh bollocks, I didn't think there'd be anything left of it to bomb after the other day" She took a deep breath in, then turned to look at him and sighed "You know what, all this, it's a bit shit isn't it?"

"Yes" Brains put his hand out and patted her consolingly on the arm as though he was apologising for something. She flashed him a small, grateful smile then squeezed his arm as though they were conspirators, and they both completely failed to notice that the Captain was standing directly behind them watching. He had intended to go and stand with her, they'd done a fair bit of chatting and laughing together as well as teasing each other during the afternoon, but then he'd seen her talking to Brains and couldn't avoid noticing the physical contact between the pair of them. If he went and stood with her now his action would almost certainly be misinterpreted.

-OG-

The morning bought the expected tide of new refugees and also the unwelcome sight of heavy snow, it was bitterly cold and windy and for the first time the showers and latrines had no water supply, apparently not because the pipes were frozen but because the camp had almost run of out of water. Their meagre supply of bottled water was being strictly rationed, with the children, the sick and pregnant women being given the highest priority and water wasn't the only thing in very short supply, vastly increased numbers of migrants and no aid deliveries meant that the food rations had to be cut drastically, and the fresh influx of asylum seekers also meant that there were no longer enough blankets to go round nor was there any space under any sort of shelter, that had long since run out. Everyone was now miserably desperate for the aid trucks to arrive, trucks which were supposedly on their way, but which were apparently held up by the heavy snow so that they were conspicuous by their absence.

It was mid-afternoon before the first trucks arrived and they were the water bowsers. Charles again found himself standing with her as they watched, both feeling helpless but with neither of them admitting it, as the steady stream of refugees carried on coming in through the main gates to sit on bits of plastic sheeting or sacking on the snowy ground, with no shelter, no food and nothing to drink. Behind the water bowsers was another large lorry covered in some foreign logos.

"Bleeding typical, we can have all have a wash now so that no-one will stink or be minging even though we can't give anyone anything to eat or have a proper drink or nothing, so where the fuck is the rest of it?"

"At least the latrines won't stink"

"Wanna bet? Today is no different, they always stink"

"True" He looked sideways at her "What's in the other one?"

"I reckon that's clothes, you know some stuff some charity's collected from somewhere, I mean, it's all very well and very nice of people, and it's bleeding useful, warm jumpers for the kids and clean socks 'n that, but where the fuck is the food and we need blankets?"

"Have you had anything to eat at all today?"

"Yeah, had some water, half a cup of tea and a stale bit of some biscuity thing"

"Lovely"

"No, it wasn't, it was bleeding horrible actually"

It was almost dark when the aid trucks finally put in an appearance and the lads immediately swung into action, unpacking lorry load after lorry load of boxes of supplies and then forming a human chain to move them to the stores tent, passing within feet of the crowds of refugees who had gravitated towards where the action was. Unlike television news broadcasts that always showed noisy hordes of people clamouring with their hands up, demanding that they be given supplies and almost coming to blows with one another as they scrabbled around on the ground for stuff that had been dropped, these people waited in quiet and dignified queues for the aid workers to start distributing the food and the blankets.

He was exhausted and the pain in his leg was agonising by the time he returned to the damp metal box he was calling home, it was chill, the walls were wet with condensation and he was convinced that his sleeping bag and blanket were damp, but he knew that the aid workers must be feeling even worse than he was, and they were still hard at it with no immediate end in sight. After waiting around all day they were now distributing food, bottled water and blankets in the freezing pitch dark to the hordes of people who were crowding into the tents that he and the lads had just finished erecting, tents that were even now inadequate in terms of sufficient space for the new arrivals, let alone for any fresh influx in the morning.

Charles has lost sight of Molly, or Miss Dawes as she still sometimes insisted that he call her. She was taking real pleasure in continuing to be a right royal pain in the arse by constantly 'forgetting' to wear her vest, but had, in spite of that, somehow become a friend, a friend he'd begun to care about a lot, maybe a little too much. He knew that she was out there somewhere, her face plastered with the cheerful grin that she reserved for refugees, and he'd been very tempted to try and track her down before he returned to his quarters to make his report to Command. The circumstances today had meant that there had been very little or no checks at all on the people coming into the camp and he'd wanted to make sure that she was wearing her vest because he knew that the odds in favour of that weren't particularly great, but he also wanted to remind her that she needed to get something to eat and drink as well as making sure that the people she was looking out for were fed and watered.

He knew there was no necessity for him to do either, that she wasn't a child and could look after herself, she'd been doing it for years before he'd arrived, so he managed to resist the temptation and instead had given himself a very stern talking to, a reminder that he did not get emotionally involved in anything of this kind, that he couldn't afford to, not under any circumstances whatsoever. He was here to do a job, as were the lads and that job did not include weeping and wailing and getting in-fucking-volved in the plight of these people, any of them. He needed to remain dispassionate and watchful so that he could make sure that this place and _all_ of the people in it, stayed as safe as he could possibly make it.

-OG-

"Hello stranger"

He turned sharply at the sound of her voice, he'd successfully managed to avoid her for the last few days, and would have done so again if he'd noticed her coming up behind him, but he was, in spite of that, illogically pleased to see her, he _liked_ her.

"Hello"

"Where you been hiding?"

"I haven't been hiding, it's been a bit busy, that's all"

"Yeah, been pretty full on last few days 'asn't it?"

She smiled at him and he nodded and smiled back, in spite of all his good resolutions he was totally unable to keep his pleasure at seeing her from showing on his face "Won't be my problem next week"

"Why, where are you going to be?"

"Got R&R haven't I? Two weeks away from here"

At first he didn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed, his first thought had been that she was off to some other location, that he was losing her to another camp somewhere, and although two weeks was going to be a long time without seeing her about the place, on the whole he was relieved because at least she'd be safe for a while …. and she'd be back, she wasn't disappearing permanently.

"Are you going home?"

"Nah, I knew a long time ago that it weren't good for me mental health to keep going back there, well not more than a couple of days once a year anyhow, usually near Christmas if I can, so I might be gonna go to Istanbul, see what that's like"

"What, on your own?"

"Yeah" she looked up at him and laughed "You know what? I'm a big girl now, I'll be fine I don't need anyone to hold me hand"

"Sorry" He tried his best to sound as if he was apologetic, which he wasn't in the slightest and he remembered now that she'd said she was working for the U.N. because she'd wanted to get away from home, so she'd probably think he was being a nosy bugger again "Where is home?

"East Ham, you know, where I used to work. It's near Stratford where the Olympics was, although where me family are it's much nearer to Upton Park where West Ham play, you can almost watch the match from outside the front door"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well Mr. Nosy Bugger, let me see, where do you want me to start? It's not east Ham, that's okay, but me Dad's a total fuckwit, any money he manages to get his bleeding hands on he pisses up the pub wall whether it's his money or not he don't care, don't make no difference to him, and me Mum's just as bad cos she gives in to him, she even let him have the housekeeping I used to give her" She shrugged "And then there are too many of us, six kids and I'm the eldest, I mean, it's well bleeding crowded" She smiled at him and pulled a rueful face "Me Nan's okay, she's a bit of a one off, her, but I can't go and live there, she's got this one bedroom place and the council won't let her have anyone else stop, so …." She gave another expressive little shrug "How about you, where do you come from?"

"My parents live in Bath" He laughed "So I guess you could say that I come from Bath, it's where I grew up, and why I still support Bath Rugby Club, but I actually live in Guildford now, not far from where I'm stationed"

"Sounds a bit shit"

"No it's not, it's nice, Bath is really nice and Guildford isn't bad either"

"If you say so, Charles"

She attempted a fake sounding posh accent, as though she was trying to speak round a marble in her mouth, and then caught her bottom lip in her teeth, trying desperately to suppress her smirk.

"I do say so, and it's Captain James to you, Miss Dawes" He smirked back at her, taking the sting out of his words and then totally forgot everything that he'd decided about not having any sort of friendship with her, or anyway decided to ignore his decision "What sort of accent is that supposed to be for fuck's sake?"

"A bleeding posh one like yours"

-OG-

An hour or so spent mulling over the pros and cons hadn't really produced the definitive answer he was looking for, he still couldn't quite make up his mind whether it was a really good idea or complete bloody madness. The idea had struck him when he'd been sitting at his desk trying to ignore the raw damp chilliness of the air while he put together an exercise schedule for the lads that would be effective in maintaining fitness levels, without being unreasonable given the cold, dreary and decidedly uncomfortable surroundings, the lack of decent food, and the god-awful hygiene arrangements.

"I can't do that, I mean, it's really nice of you 'n that, but I can't"

"Why not?"

"You don't know me, you only know the me that's here, I mean, I could be anyone, I could decide to let the bleeding squatters get in and set up home and they might wreck the place, or you know, I could have a wild party or summat, put it on Facebook, piss all your neighbours off"

"Okay, you've persuaded me, I've just changed my mind" He laughed "That invitation? Forget I even mentioned it"

"Oh no don't do that, I said, it's really kind of you and I was only saying what I might do, not that I was gonna do any of it, course not, I wouldn't dream of it" She looked at him with what she hoped was an innocently angelic expression on her face.

"I'm thinking about it" He was trying desperately not to smirk as he watched her put on her floor show.

"And it'll maybe help to save me liver a bit"

"What's that supposed to mean"

"If I'm on me own in some cheap hotel in Istanbul I'll most likely have to have a drink or six otherwise I'll get a bit, you know, bored or fed up or summat" She started giggling at the serious expression on his face.

"You'll be on your own in my flat"

"I know, but I can go and see me mates or go shopping up west, or watch the tele, can't I?" She made a valiant effort to stop giggling and pulled a face that was designed to be a mixture of being contrite while pleading at the same time, widening her eyes at him in another attempt to look completely innocent "I promise I won't bring the squatters in or let it out or even have a party or nothing, I'll be as quiet as a little mouse, your neighbours won't even know I'm there, and if I do go to the pub I'll have a diet coke or summat ….. I promise"

"Right, and you expect me to believe that, do you?"

"Yeah you're right it does taste pretty horrible, but it don't give you a hangover so it don't make you feel like you've been hit by a truck like when you've had a little bit too much wine, not that I ever do that, of course"

"Go on then, I suppose I can't change my mind now" He smiled and passed her a bunch of keys"Don't bloody lose them, the estate agents have got the other set so if you lose these I won't be able to get in the building when I get home, well not until I get them back from the agent, and that's always supposing that they haven't lost them by then either"

"Why have they got your keys?"

"I had some tenants in there for a bit, but the agents had to throw them out because they didn't pay the rent, and I've decided not to re-let it, I'll be home before it'd be worth all the hassle, so it's empty now"

"What's this for?" She held up the fob key on the ring.

"That's for my car"

"Oh good, are you lending me that as well?"

"No, I'm bloody well not" He took the set of keys back from her and removed the fob key "Just in case you get tempted …. and stop pushing your luck"

"Spoilsport, I were looking forward to driving round in your Ferrari"

"My what?" He laughed incredulously "Where the hell did you get the idea that I drive around in a Ferrari?"

"Why, you got one of them Aston Martins instead? That's what posh people like you drive, innit?" She was now giggling again.

"No I haven't, I haven't got either, but tell me, just as a matter of interest you understand, not that I'm going to lend you my car either way Miss Dawes, but can you even drive?" He was now laughing almost as hard as she was.

"Yeah, course I can" She paused, looking up at him and widening her eyes again, doing her best to paste a look of outraged innocence on her face "I'm the nuts I am, well I will be, I'll be bloody shit hot once I've passed me test"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thanks for your feedback, please carry on reviewing for me so that I know that people are still with me. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, Chapter 5 on Monday x**_


	5. Chapter 5

"Bloody hell"

It had been a bit disappointing not to have seen him when she left the camp, okay, so he was obviously busy somewhere but it felt a bit 'wrong" not to have had the chance to say goodbye and to thank him again because, if she was being totally honest, she still felt a bit awkward about the whole thing, so awkward that she hadn't said a word to Grace about it, hadn't mentioned anything about it to her, or to anyone actually. No-one except Charles knew she was here and that felt a bit weird.

The taxi had dropped her just a few minutes before and she'd been tempted to check that the driver had got the right place, this was not what she'd been expecting, even bearing in mind how posh he was. 'Here' was a small, exclusive and very up-market development of flats, obviously newly built round three sides of a square which had a garden in the middle, a garden with railings round it and a gate to keep the riff-raff out, if there was any riff-raff in Guildford which, to Molly's eyes looked well bleeding posh. The garden had one of those lawns with stripes, the sort of lawn that you would worry about walking on in case you spoiled the pattern, and the flower beds were filled with masses of bright coloured spring flowers, with no gaps so it didn't look like anyone had nicked a bunch to put in their house. She walked along what was obviously a brand new cobbled pathway, there was no road outside the front of the flats, and looked for the right number, peering up occasionally at the neo-Georgian façades of the buildings with their little black wrought iron balconies, and knew that this place was so far out of her price range that it might as well be Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.

Undoing the lock on the outside door was the easy bit, she'd managed that with no problem at all, even if that was the one Charles was bothered about it if she lost his keys, but the internal one was a bit more of a challenge. She'd finally managed to work out the sequence of undoing the locks; she'd forgotten every word he'd told her about undoing the mortice before the Yale, so that eventually she managed to get the door open before any of the neighbours called the police to report an attempted break in. She was now walking around with her mouth open and her eyes out on stalks, sure that if this was hers there was no way she'd have let some random stranger come and stay in it, just like that.

It wasn't that it was that big, it wasn't particularly, in fact the kitchen was almost tiddly, but everything was very sort of slick, very modern and new, and very clean and shiny, and very, very tidy, there was no stuff left out on anything anywhere. She looked around her to see if there were any CDs or anything or photos, but there wasn't even a book. Okay, so he'd been renting it out so his stuff was most likely in storage or something, somewhere else anyhow, but there wasn't even any dust, well not that she could see, so he must have a cleaner or something come in and sort it even if there wasn't anyone stopping in the place. The sitting room had shiny floorboards with great big squashy looking sofas and cream rugs, with no coffee stains or nothing on them, and lovely cream curtains at the French windows which opened onto one of the little balconies overlooking the square and there were a couple of bedrooms, again not very big, but with two bathrooms, both very modern and shiny and clean, and again, no stuff anywhere.

Having a good nose about in the cupboards and drawers was totally the wrong thing to be doing but she told herself that he wouldn't know and the urge was overwhelming, anyhow he'd most likely expect her to. It was ultimately unsatisfactory, there wasn't even any post lying about, so someone must be looking after stuff for him. The only things of his that weren't like cutlery and crockery and towels 'n that, were in the fridge which had been left on. There were two bottles of wine keeping cold, white wine, but any thoughts she had of necking them and then replacing them vanished when she took them out and looked at the labels, Lidl's best they definitely weren't, and she'd never be able to find the right ones to replace them, let alone afford them.

She knew she should sleep in what was obviously the spare room, the smaller one of the two, that he would have every right to expect her to sleep in there, but he hadn't said and the other one, his room, had the en-suite bathroom, something she'd always wanted, and as she'd have to make up the bed whichever one she chose, that one was favourite. Her cursory search of the bedroom cupboards and drawers revealed nothing, not even a pair of socks in the bedside drawers and the bathroom cabinet was empty as well, the door standing wide open, which was a bit disappointing, although it was what she'd come to expect by this point in her mission.

Taking the sheet of paper from her shoulder bag she read his careful instructions on how to turn the heating and hot water on, he had beautiful handwriting which was only what you'd expect from someone as posh as him, and he most likely didn't want her to sod about with the controls of anything, still, it was really nice of him to take the time to write it all out for her like that. She turned everything on and then, being careful to lock all the doors properly and in the right sequence, went out shopping for basic bits and pieces. As she walked to the shops and then pushed a trolley round Tesco, Molly started to thoroughly enjoy herself imagining that this was, in fact, where she lived, it was all hers, but the one thing that was missing, the thing that would make the place even better, perfect in fact, was someone to share it with, even if it was only in her imagination.

Not him, obviously, she couldn't put him in her daydream, she hadn't got a father fixation or a thing for older men or nothing, and he was nearly nine years older than her, but it wasn't that that stopped her, if she was being honest it was that there was just something about him that made her feel like she'd been drinking on an empty stomach. Being in this place on her own after months of living surrounded by the noise and smells of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people should have just been a relief, and if he was there she obviously wouldn't be, and she hadn't got a crush on him, not really, it was just that he was very good looking and very kind to her. Once she'd admitted to herself that, even if he was a bleeding soldier and far too old, she sort of fancied him a little bit, it got harder and harder to wipe the thought from her brain.

A deep hot bath with loads of Tesco's finest bubble bath, ducking her head under the water and topping the bath up with scalding water every time it started to cool down a bit, was a blissful, almost unimaginable luxury. She hadn't had a bath for months, the camp only ran to showers and pretty pathetically horrible ones at that, so she stayed in the bath until she looked like a giant prune then rinsed her hair and got out. She'd just wrapped herself up in a great big soft white towel that had been warming on the rail, another luxury, and put a smaller one round her wet head when she heard what sounded like a key in the lock opening the front door.

Her first thought was that it might be Charles, although what the fuck he'd be doing there she had no idea, or how he could have managed it even, he was in bloody Turkey playing soldiers, so it must be the agent, they had the other key, so maybe they were bringing someone to look round the place, and Charles had obviously forgotten to tell them that he didn't want to let it out or that there was someone stopping for a couple of weeks. She wasn't quite sure what to do next, whether to shout out or keep quiet and stay where she was, standing in the still steamy bathroom, stark bollock naked except for a couple of towels, when she heard a girl's voice call out.

Charles had said that the place was empty, he'd never mentioned anything about a girlfriend or nothing, so who the fuck had just let herself in?

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I could say the same thing to you, what are you doing in here? Charles hasn't said anything to me about you being here"

"That's funny, he never mentioned you neither" She had walked through to the sitting room and tightened the fold of the towel over her breasts and then clutched at it, it had begun to work loose again and she had no intention of flashing this woman, this blonde and immaculately dressed woman who had legs that went up to her bum "How did you get a key anyhow?"

"Obviously Charles gave it to me, I'm Flora, I keep an eye on the place for him when he's away" She put out her hand for Molly to shake, which she did, swapping over the hands holding up the towel, because she couldn't think how to avoid touching this woman without being incredibly rude "And you are?"

"I'm Molly and Charles offered for me to stay for a bit, I'm on leave" Then she had some sort of brain-wave "So, you're his cleaner are you? You do a really good job, it's lovely in here"

She'd pretended to look around, she knew she was being incredibly insulting, or at least that this Flora would think so, Molly couldn't see anything wrong with cleaning for a living but she had a feeling that Flora wouldn't agree with her.

"I am _not_ his cleaner, I'm his neighbour and he didn't call to let me know that you were going to be here"

"Did he know he had to? And do you always just walk into someone else's place without knocking first?"

"Some of the neighbours wondered who it was who was walking in and out of the place"

"Well, if you'd rung on the bleeding doorbell I would of answered it and you could have seen, bingo, bango, problem solved"

Molly was beginning to feel like being extremely rude to Florrie or whatever the fuck her name was, no-one had asked Miss High and Mighty to come barging in here looking down her nose, after all. Charles had invited her to stop here, and this girl was the one who was intruding, not her, and they both knew that the only person who wanted to know who was going in and out of the flat was Flossie herself. There was one thing that was cast-iron guaranteed, written in blood and without any shadow of any doubt at all, and that was that there was no way Molly was going to answer to this cheeky cow, however superior she thought she was. She was just his bloody neighbour after all.

"Well, now you've seen me for yourself, don't let me keep you, I'm sure that you can find your own way out can't you? It's the same way you let yourself in, only backwards"

"I'm very surprised that he didn't let me know about you staying here, we're very close …" Flora ignored what Molly had just said and carried on in favour of giving a very perceptible and significant pause "… friends"

Molly smirked, enjoying the look of deep suspicion and barely concealed anger on the other girl's face, so maybe Floosie was a little bit more than a neighbour after all, maybe a neighbour with benefits? Or that was what she wanted Molly to believe anyway. If she was, she deserved everything she'd got, he was a bloody soldier, what the hell else did she expect?

"Really? Does he know that? Cos I've known him for quite a while and as I said, he's never mentioned you, not once"

"Does Rebecca know that you're here?"

"Who's Rebecca?"

"His wife"

Molly pretended to peer around as if she was looking for someone or something "Can't see her here checking me out, can you? My guess is that either she don't know, and that would be cos there's nothing to know, or that Charles called her and told her instead of you"

"He wouldn't do that"

"If you say so" Molly sniggered.

"I'll be checking with him about you when I get home" Molly could see that Flora's display of good manners was now a very thin veneer.

"Please, don't let me stop you" She paused "Oh and say hello from me when you speak to him, don't forget to give him me love will you?"

She walked to the front door and held it open, still hanging onto her towel with one hand and inviting Flora to leave so that the other girl couldn't very well avoid going, the only way would be by standing in the middle of the lounge in some sort of territorial Mexican stand-off, which Molly would win because she wasn't going anywhere in a towel, so Flora flounced out leaving Molly to go through and put some clothes on, just in case she had any other uninvited guests on their way.

-OG-

The telephone ringing on the bedside table woke her from a deep and dreamless sleep, so that she'd wondered where she was for a few moments and then wondered whether she should answer it or not, it wasn't very likely to be for her because no-one knew she was there. She yawned and stretched and wished she had a cup of tea, her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth, something she usually associated with having a killer hangover, but was actually because she'd left the heating turned up high all night for the sheer luxury of being warm. The phone stopped ringing, and then immediately started again.

"Hello"

"Thought I'd ring and check, make sure you've found everything you need, managed to turn the heating on, things like that, well, just to see that everything's okay there"

"Yeah thanks, everything's fine, or it will be once the cleaners get done here"

"What?"

"Yeah, it'll all be fine once they get all of the graffiti off of the walls and the stains off of the bedroom carpet, you know, from when them squatters was in here"

"Oh yes bloody funny, absolutely hilarious"

"I thought so" She laughed, then yawned and stretched "Nice here, innit? It's well posh and the neighbours are dead friendly aren't they? Very welcoming"

"Are they? I hadn't noticed"

"Yeah, 'specially your friend Flossie or Floosie or whatever her bleeding name is, let herself in and everything just to make sure I was happy and that I had everything I wanted, that I didn't need to borrow a cup of sugar or nothing"

"I have no idea what you're talking about"

"Oh, she didn't ring you then? She said she was gonna ring, seemed a bit upset that you never called and asked if it'd be okay if I stopped here for a bit, says she looks after the place for you when you're away or summat"

"Oh, you mean Flora, what did you call her?" He started laughing then went on before she could answer "Yes, she's one of my neighbours, holds onto the spare key for me when I'm away, makes sure there's no pile of free newspapers or junk mail … hang on, hang on" He paused mid-sentence and stopped laughing "What'd you mean she let herself in?"

"What I said, she appeared in here, I'd just got out of the bath, weren't even dressed, just as well I weren't entertaining anyone or nothing wasn't it, cos she just marched in here bold as brass, wanted to know all about who I am and what I was doing in here and then wanted to tell me all about what good friends the two of you are, if you get me drift"

"What, you're telling me that she just walked in? What the bloody hell did she say? No, on second thoughts don't tell me, I don't think I want to know" He paused and thought for a long moment "Are you sure you got it right, I don't know, you didn't misunderstand what she was saying?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, Oh, and then when I weren't impressed enough with that, she thought she'd best make sure that I know all about you having a wife"

-OG-

 _ **A/N:**_ **Thank you for your reviews, please keep them coming because this is turning into a longer story than I'd initially intended (I'd finished it once) and the reviews are what keep me bashing away at additional chapters, which I sincerely hope don't turn out to be total cra*p.**

 **Hope everyone had a lovely weekend, I spent a lot of mine in my parallel universe, busy, as my lovely husband pointed out, breaking all sorts of promises, oops!**


	6. Chapter 6

"I haven't got a wife, well not anymore, I haven't had for a couple of years really and now we're just about divorced" It was the first time he'd acknowledged it out loud to anyone and was a bit surprised that he didn't feel a single flicker of regret any more. There was another short silence before he went on "Rebecca and I, well we didn't work out but I don't understand why Flora should be worrying about my ex-wife, someone she's never even met for fuck's sake"

"Don't you?"

"No I don't, but whatever you do, Molly, don't mention any of this to Flora will you? I don't want her …. knowing"

"Why not? You know Charles, if she's just your neighbour it don't matter what she thinks, does it" She paused, wondering whether to wind him up or not, then thought better of it "Nah, alright don't get your knickers in a knot, I can't see the two of us going to the pub for a girlie night anytime soon, I don't think she liked me very much"

"What did you say to her?"

"Not much, I just sorta told her to do one, oh and I asked her to give you me love when she rang to complain about me being here without permission"

"Lovely" She could hear him struggling to speak as he tried to control his burst of laughter at the same time, then he got serious again "She didn't say that you had to have her permission, did she?"

"Well, no, not in so many words she never, but that's what she meant"

"I can see that I'm going to have to get my key back from her, going to have to find someone else to keep an eye on the place for me"

"It's your own fault, innit?"

"Oh God, what the fuck have I done now?"

"I dunno do I, but you shouldn't have messed with her, should you? I don't think she's that happy with the way things are, I mean, it's none of my bleeding business but she seemed a bit, you know, upset, a bit pissy about some'ing, seems to me she thinks you're a bit more than just neighbours"

"Tell me something, why is everything always my fault with you? Flora and I are just neighbours, that's it, nothing more, I have never messed with her as you put it, I don't know what she said to you and I don't think I want to know, but I've taken that girl out for dinner once to say thanks for watching the flat and we chatted once when we were all a bit pissed at a neighbour's housewarming. I think I might have kissed her goodnight on the cheek, I really can't remember, but everyone kissed everyone else that night, obviously a huge mistake. I. Have. Never. Touched. Her"

"Alright, calm down, keep your bleeding hair on"

Molly bit her lip in a vain attempt to control the wave of satisfaction or relief or the little bubble of whatever it was that was spreading through her making her want to laugh out loud.

"Is everything okay there? What's the weather like?"

"Typical Brits, if in doubt, let's talk about the weather" He laughed "It's cold, actually its bloody cold, and it's noisy and it's crowded, oh and it's raining, and before you ask, some of the kids have got some sort of bug, so it's more than a bit smelly as well"

"Glad I'm here and not there then"

"It's quiet here without you"

"How the bloody hell can it be noisy and quiet all at the same time?" She paused "Are you saying that I'm bleeding noisy? You cheeky sod, I'm as quiet as a little mouse, me"

"Alright, perhaps not quiet, perhaps that's not the right word, it's lonely, is that better?"

"That's a nice thing to say"

"I am nice"

"No you're not, you're a bleeding soldier ….. soldiers are not nice"

"When you get back here you're going to have to tell me what that's all about, what exactly you've got against soldiers, some of us are really nice"

"Course you are" She yawned and stretched again "Well, if you say so, anyhow, but I don't _have_ to tell anyone anything about anything, even you, and I'm gonna go now cos I'm getting up, I need a cuppa" She couldn't really say that she needed a wee like she would have done if they'd been chatting in the camp, it didn't seem right somehow to say that over the phone "And then I've gotta go out later and get some Nescafe for some fussy old bugger I know, I dunno what's wrong with a tea bag meself"

"Oi, I don't mind the fussy, or even the bugger, if I must, but less of the old if you don't mind, and are you still in bed? At this hour?"

"Course I am, where else would I be, I'm on me holidays aren't I? And it's all warm and comfortable in here and it's raining outside, I can hear it, and it's not late" She picked up her watch from the table and squinted at it "Well, not that late"

"I'll let you go then" She could hear from his voice that he was smiling, a smile that was reciprocated on her own face "Thank you again for getting my coffee, its Rosabaya, by the way, not Nescafe, but I have a feeling that you already know that"

"Me?" She giggled "What makes you think that? And it's the least I can do when you've lent me your posh pad for the party"

"I'm going to go before I say something I'll regret"

"Okay, go on then, Rambo, piss off, go and find some people to yell at and get all pissy with, ….. bye"

"You promised to stop calling me that, and I'll have you know that I do not yell, I never yell, and I do not get pissy either, bye"

"Must be getting you confused with someone else then, bye"

"Bye"

-OG-

He'd had a mental picture of her in the flat all morning and a good bit of the previous night, a picture that hadn't included Flora barging in, which was a situation he was going to have to deal with as soon as he got home. The disturbing and delightful image he now had of Molly curled up under the duvet in his bed, somehow he knew she was in his bed and not in the spare room, was sending even more disturbing and very pleasurable messages to his groin, messages which were not being helped by an image of her just out of the bath and clad in a towel when Flora had made her uninvited visit.

The enforced celibacy of deployment, together with his current lack of a regular partner at home was obviously having some effect on him, an effect that he felt he needed to suppress and the sooner the better. In spite of the fact that she was far too small and not blonde and was a very long way from being his type, and, discounting the fact that she was far too young for him, as things stood he was heading straight into trouble and knew it. Nine years was a huge age gap, when he'd been taking his first look at the dog-eared porn doing the rounds at school, she'd still have been at nursery school, and he'd already been at boarding school for a while when she was born. Even though she was one of the most mature people he'd ever come across, when she was working that is, and he had to admit that he loved the way she constantly took the piss out of him when she wasn't, it was still nine years and it was still a problem.

Staying away when she'd set off for home had been the right move, or so he still kept telling himself, she worked very hard, long hours in difficult and stressful circumstances, as did all the girls who'd gone on R&R, and she needed the break, but the reason he'd kept clear when she'd left was that he'd been in real danger of making an idiot of himself by allowing her to see just how much he hadn't wanted her to go.

Excuses that justified his picking up his phone and calling her kept popping into his brain so that overcoming the temptation had become a daily battle, until a fresh wave of bombing meant another huge influx of asylum seekers which effectively distracted him from thoughts of his private life, such as it was. The fact that some of the aid workers, like Molly, were away meant that there was huge pressure on the others leading to a degree of frantic activity, but he found himself agreeing with the lads when they said that they'd had no idea there were quite so many people living in Aleppo in the first place. They'd all thought, or assumed, that almost the entire civilian population had already moved into the camp, so there was now a marked degree of suspicion and distrust that some of the people turning up weren't actually from there at all, but could be anyone from just about anywhere.

On the whole he was glad that Molly wasn't there, it would have been a nightmare trying to make sure that she was wearing a vest all the time, something which, as far as they were concerned, was vital, and she would have been furious with them all for the way they suspected the newcomers of not being entirely genuine. However, the fact that she was still back in his flat in Guildford did nothing to help him put her out of his mind when he was alone in his metal box trying to get off to sleep at night or when he woke after she'd starred in one of his increasingly enjoyable and definitely 'X' rated dreams.

-OG-

She spent her last day in the flat cleaning and polishing and returning the place to the pristine condition she'd found it in when she'd first arrived, even though she wasn't ever going to be there again there was a certain degree of pride involved in making sure that the whole place looked perfect when he got back. He hadn't called her again, and after a few days she'd given up expecting to hear the phone ring, well, that's what she told herself anyway, but it didn't stop her watching television with the sound turned down a bit, just in case the phone rang, or from checking his answer machine for messages when she'd been out.

He knew that she was back when he returned from running around the perimeter of the camp, they'd set themselves a challenge of knocking at least 1 second off their best time on each day's run, it was a vain attempt by Easter to infuse the event with some sort of interest and challenge, instead of the stultifying boredom of running round and round the same route every day, with 'latrine clean' as a punishment for not making enough effort. He'd put a great deal of effort into trying _not_ tocount the days till she was due back, so he was only half expecting her and the run had not gone particularly well on that day, so when he got back to his box and found the coffee capsules tied with a red ribbon in the middle of his camp bed, it suddenly became a very good day indeed.

-OG-

"Thank you for getting my coffee, it means that I'll now be a fully functioning soldier or I will be once I've had my first cup in the morning"

"I'm not even gonna ask" She peeped at him from under her lashes as they sat, side by side on a hill overlooking the porta-cabins and main gate, it was the first time since he'd arrived in the camp that the ground had been dry enough to sit on, although they could both feel that it was still slightly damp "Cos that sounds a bit rude to me"

"Miss Dawes, I don't know what you mean"

"You can call me Molly now I've slept in your bed for a couple of weeks"

"That's a bloody good idea, let's tell everyone why don't we?" He laughed and looked around to see who was within earshot and was relieved to see that none of the lads were close enough to hear, he had no wish for them to know that he was the one who was stepping over the boundaries.

"Okay, if you really want me to I will"

"Shut up, Molly, you know I didn't mean that you should do it, I'll never hear the end of it if the lads find out" He smiled, wishing more than anything that he could just lean forward a couple of feet and kiss the tip of her nose, but that couple of feet might as well be a couple of miles as things stood "What else did you do apart from pissing off my neighbour and buying my coffee? And can I have the real version, please, not the 'let's see how much I can wind him up' one?"

"Spoilsport" She grinned at him "I've said before, you're a nosy bugger aren't you? And why didn't you ring?"

"Sorry, I wasn't sure you'd want me to, thought you might think I was checking up on you or something"

"Well you would have been wouldn't you, nosy bugger like you"

"Sorry I didn't mean to be nosy, I was ….."

"And you're really easy to wind up 'n all, aren't you?" She smirked and patted his arm as she interrupted him, he felt as if her hand was burning his skin through the cotton sleeve of his combat shirt as he shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground "I did everything I wanted, well, except for Sunday when I went to the car boot, did you know you've got a car boot just round the corner from you?"

"No, can't say I've ever noticed" He was tempted to laugh and add that he didn't actually give a shit either, but she went on "I was too late and bleeding well missed it, didn't I? I didn't know you had to be there really early, so by the time I got there everyone else was packing up and pissing off. I've always wanted to go to one of them to see if I can find some bargain, you know, something ugly what costs peanuts, and then turns out to be worth a bleeding fortune, like they do on the tele"

"More likely to pay a fortune for something that ends up being worth peanuts" He smirked at her, conscious that her hand was still on his arm "I'll take you to one when we get home"

There was a long pause before she spoke, a silence that spoke volumes, it was the first time either of them had ever mentioned anything about any sort of on-going friendship, about seeing each other after he'd left this place "Bit previous that, innit?"

"Nope" he was kicking himself, he didn't know why he'd said it, except for being very aware that her hand was still on his arm "We're friends aren't we? Friends can go to a car boot together, can go and look for some bit of old junk that turns out to be a priceless heirloom, and then we can sell it and split the proceeds"

"Okay, there's no need to overdo it"

"I thought you were going to say that we can't be friends because you don't like soldiers" He paused and looked at her "I know you're going to call me a nosy bugger again, but are you going to tell me why?"

"Nah, don't think so"

"Molly?"

She took her hand off his arm, drew her legs up and then put her arms round them and hugged them so that she could rest her chin on her knees and stare into the distance "Okay, but if I tell you, will you promise to stop going on about it? I will tell you, but you need to keep your bloody gob shut and listen, cos nothing you can say will make it all better or make it go away or nothing, so don't even go there, okay?"

"Okay, I promise, but come on, it can't be that bad" He saw her raise her eyebrows as if she was questioning whether he'd paid any attention at all to what she'd just said "Sorry, sorry"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you, thank you for all the nice things you've said and for the encouragement to extend my original planned chapters, and to those of you who were kind enough to say that I don't write cr*p, I would just like to say that you should see the amount that goes under the "delete" button.**_


	7. Chapter 7

"I believed it, didn't I? every fucking word he said, all of it, all that happy ever after shit about our lives in the States, well, I wanted to believe it I s'pose, what a bleeding muppet" She was still staring into space but was now drawing circles with her finger on one knee of her jeans as she thought about what to say, how to explain "It was all a load of bollocks, of course, should of known, but he let me make these plans, tell everyone at home 'n that and he only told me the night before they shipped out, told me not to bother packing me stuff cos I weren't going anywhere"

"S'pose I should be grateful that he told me before I got on the sodding plane but he had to cos the thing was" She gulped "The thing was, you see, he'd forgot to tell me that he already had a wife waiting at home, seemed to have sort of slipped his mind or summat, and he'd forgot that he'd got a kid as well, little boy, he never mentioned him neither"

"Anyhow, he went back to his family and left me to tell everyone what a fuckwit I was"

"Shit" He thought for a moment "That had nothing to do with him being a soldier though, Molly, that was just him, not all soldiers are like that"

He wanted to tell her that none of it had been her fault, but he'd promised to keep his mouth shut, not to say anything to try and make things better, however much he wanted to.

"Might of bleeding known it"

"What?"

"That you'd stick up for soldiers, you being one of them"

"I'm not sticking up for anyone, especially not him, believe me I'm not"

He wanted to put his arm round her shoulder, to try and comfort her, but he couldn't of course, and anyway she'd been right, none of this was any of his business and he'd pushed and pushed her into re-living something that obviously still hurt, something that she'd have preferred to forget. He'd just told her that it had had nothing to do with this bloke being a soldier, but even as he'd said it he wasn't sure that it was true, being a soldier on deployment had meant that there'd been opportunities, he could lie to her and get away with it, and even though he and Molly hadn't got the type of relationship she'd had with the American, he hadn't been entirely straight with her either which made him very uncomfortable. She'd already found out about Rebecca from someone else, but there were other things that he hadn't told her.

"Do you still care, still love him, even after all that?"

"I did care for a long time, course I cared, I couldn't just switch it off. I was really bleeding angry with him, I mean, I thought he loved me and that I was gonna have this great life …. but I sorta knew that he'd used me, so it weren't brilliant for a bit. On top of that there was people told me I were a total muppet for believing in any of it at all and others what kept saying that I must have known which made me some sort of home-wrecking little tart …. " She shrugged and avoided his eyes "I am sort of over it now, I don't trust bloody soldiers though, I won't ever make that mistake again"

"Listen to me …"

Afterwards Molly couldn't have said with any degree of certainty whether it was the force of the blast that had flung her face down in the dirt or whether it was him throwing himself on top of her in an instinctive move to protect her from flying debris or further explosions. The deafening noise had ripped through the air before he could finish what he was saying, leaving a complete and utter silence as the shock waves died away, although the debris kept on falling over them, like gentle dusty rain, and then the air was filled with the sounds of someone screaming. He lifted his head and got up as he yelled at her to stay down while he checked to see what was happening and the other soldiers appeared in her peripheral vision all running towards where the UN porta-cabin was, only it didn't seem to be there anymore.

As soon as he'd lifted his weight from her and begun to move with the other men, she tried to stand up, her ears still ringing from the explosion, she was spitting out bits of dirt and grass and rubbing dust from her eyes while her body hurt all over, then her ears were filled with the sound of screaming. He looked back to where they'd been sitting to check that she was okay, and saw immediately what she was trying to do and began repeatedly screaming at her to stay the fuck down as he continued to run towards where the cabin had stood. She ignored him, the only thing she could focus on was that she had seen Grace, laughing, with children pulling on the bottom of her shirt and clinging onto her hands, her sheets of platinum blonde hair shining in the sun as she disappeared through the door of the office taking two of the kids with her, an office that didn't seem to be there anymore.

She could hear someone screaming Grace's name over and over, but it wasn't until the blonde girl grabbed her by the shoulders that she realised that it was her who was yelling and that her friend was, like her, in one piece, although just as shaken as she was. They clung onto each other in shocked disbelief, neither of them sure what had just happened, it didn't seem possible that anyone had wanted to kill them.

-OG-

"You okay?"

She nodded as he put out his hand and lightly patted the back of her knuckles as she clutched the bundle of soaking wet tissues that were balled up and disintegrating in her hand. She had been sitting there for quite a while and the tissues had been used to scrub at the fresh flow of tears and snot that had been pouring down her face, that was until she'd seen his tall figure come out of his office and start striding towards where she was sitting, when she'd taken a deep shuddering breath, straightened her shoulders and done her best to get the tears under control. The trouble was that she couldn't sleep so she was exhausted, every time she shut her eyes she could see the devastation and could hear the blast and the noise of the screaming, but not only that, every time things went a bit quiet, when there wasn't anything that needed urgent attention, the waterworks started and she didn't want him to remember her with slitty, swollen eyes and snot pouring down her face.

"You know we're off home tomorrow, don't you?"

She bit her bottom lip, she hadn't seen him for more than a few minutes in passing during the last week, and she had no idea what he'd thought when he found out that the workers who'd been there the longest were being sent home, or whether he even knew. He hadn't made any attempt to spend time alone with her since the bomb had gone off, something which was now being called the "incident" as if wrapping it up in what Grace called a euphemism made it any less shit than it was before.

Eight people dead, including the young lad, nobody even knew what his proper name was, who'd strapped a bomb to himself and detonated it in the cabin. Bloody good riddance to a total fucking arsehole was Molly's private thoughts about him, but she'd learned over the years that personal opinions could be dynamite and it was better to keep your private thoughts to yourself; it was far better to go along with the official versions of things, whether you agreed with them or not. Some group or other had claimed responsibility for what he'd done, but no-one seemed to have any sort of explanation as to what he thought he was achieving, apart from killing a whole load of people, mainly kids, that he probably didn't know, that he hadn't even met.

Four children and one aid worker from Northern Ireland who'd only been in camp ten days, so Molly hadn't even come across her, together with a couple of other women, mothers, but not the mums of the dead children, so that there were other kids who would never have a proper family again. Seventeen people injured on top, some badly enough to need immediate medivac to Ankara including an aid worker who'd lost her leg and a baby, the rest followed by road. Two other aid workers were hurt but fortunately no more kids, however since it had happened almost all the children were too scared to play out or to go to bed at night, as if living in a camp and away from their homes wasn't bad enough, and still no-one could say why.

"Yeah, I heard, you're welcome to use my flat again if you want to, you only have to say the word"

"Nah, you're alright, I promised me mum I'd go home for a bit, she's freaked cos she never realised that it was so bleeding dangerous here, actually I'm not sure that I did neither"

"That'll be good, to see your mum, the rest of your family, won't it?"

"Yeah, I s'pose"

She stole a sideways glance at his tense, stern face, he looked a million miles away from the person that she'd teased endlessly, the friend who'd had this way of throwing his head back when he laughed, this bloke she'd begun to see as, if she was being honest, a bit more than a friend. It was as if that person had put up this great big wall round himself, put up a screen to mask all his feelings and to distance himself from her completely. She wanted to pat his arm, to say something to comfort him, she'd have done it without thinking before the 'incident' but somehow it would now feel all wrong.

"I'm sorry, Molly"

"What for, what you done?"

"I'm sorry about all this" He waved his arm round indicating the twisted metal remains of the porta-cabin which were still there, waiting to be removed and replaced with a new one "It was my job to keep everyone safe and I took my eye off the ball, I got complacent and I spent far too much time letting myself get distracted"

"None of it were your fault" She suddenly registered what he'd said "Oi, hang about a minute, are you saying that this were somehow something to do with me, that it were my fault in some way, that I were the one what was distracting you?"

"No, of course not, it wasn't anything to do with you, this was totally my fault, I had a job to do here and I didn't do it very well, I let everyone down" He half turned to smile at her, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes "Do you know where you'll be going next?"

"Greece I think or maybe one of them Italian Islands, well that's what everyone's saying anyhow, so, good thing is I'll be able to work on me suntan"

Neither of them wanted to be the first to break away and terminate the conversation, that would make them the one who was putting the final nail in the coffin of the friendship, but their conversation was stilted, uneasy, a world away from the way it had been before and neither of them could think of any way to restore their camaraderie, everything had changed and there didn't seem to be anything else to say.

"Look after yourself Molly, and do me a bloody favour, wear that vest if some Rambo tells you to, it'll be for your own safety"

"Nag, nag, nag" She gulped and swallowed hard trying to get rid of the huge lump that had formed in her throat "Wouldn't have helped much with what happened here though would it? Still, as you ask so nicely I might do what you say, and listen, you look after yourself 'n all, and don't forget me"

"As if I could, bloody pain in the bum most of the time"

"Nah, you love me really, you know you do"

There was a huge silence when she'd said it, once the words were out there she couldn't take them back and quantifying or explaining them would just make things worse, but she hadn't planned or thought about what she was about to say, the words had just slipped out of her mouth.

"Yup" His voice was terse as if he'd retreated even further behind his mask "Be safe for me, won't you?"

He didn't look at her as he got to his feet, dusted the seat of his trousers and started to stride away but somehow she wasn't upset or angry with him, because even though he hadn't said or done anything she could put her finger on, and had done his level best to be completely detached and unemotional, she knew that he was finding the whole thing as difficult as she was.

"Course, you too"

He didn't turn to look at her, just waved his hand in the air as an acknowledgement that she'd spoken, so she sat and watched as he walked back to his office, then picked herself up and went to finish packing her belongings, belongings that seemed to have miraculously multiplied since she'd been there, which was strange considering there weren't any shops for miles.

-OG-

"You got everything all packed then?"

"Nope, I don't want to go, you know that, so I've been sitting here trying to come up with a really good reason why my Mother shouldn't have gotten her own way, why I shouldn't have to go back to Washington if I don't want to, I _am_ an adult after all"

"You sure about that, mate?"

"I hate you, Molly Dawes"

"No you don't and how did your Mother get her own way?"

"I have no idea, she probably offered the High Commissioner a blow job knowing her, anything to pull strings to get her own way and make me have to go back to Washington, so I'd have to live with her and dad"

"Grace! She's not going to be too impressed if you go home talking like that, is she?" Molly thought for a moment, then frowned "She wouldn't have really though would she? Give him a blow job I mean"

"I have no idea" Grace giggled "My mum and I don't talk about sex, it's not a suitable topic for a lady" She looked closely at her friend "Talking about sex, have you seen your soldier?"

"What has he got to do with your mum or sex for that matter? But, yeah, I have seen him as it happens and I keep on telling you, he's not _my_ bleeding soldier, and we haven't had sex, okay? I've never touched him, anyhow I think he's a bit upset with me, I sort of got the feeling that he thinks this shit was somehow my fault, well, not in so many words of course, but I got the idea that he thinks I distracted him"

"Jerk" Grace put her arm round Molly's shoulders "Of course none of this was your fault, or his for that matter, bloody men! Just as well he didn't make your bits twitch, isn't it?"

"Well I might have lied a little bit there"

"Oh" Grace picked up a handful of her underwear and threw it into the holdall which was open on her bed. She wasn't sure what to say in response to this 'about face' "I'm sorry Molly, but look on the bright side he's a soldier and you don't do soldiers, do you?"

"No I don't, but you might like to think about what you just said before you say some'ing like that in front of your mum"

"Oops, sorry" She pulled a face, then giggled, acknowledging her questionable choice of words, as she decided to try and change the subject because she was horribly afraid that Molly was actually upset and trying to hide it but she couldn't think of anything to say which would make her feel better "I am really, really going to miss you, can I come and stay with you when I've gotten sick of being at home with my mother?"

"Course you can, mind, one night in a bunk bed at mine and queuing for the bathroom with your legs crossed and you'll be running back to your mum's house, what with your posh bedroom with its en-suite and however many bathrooms you've got, especially when me Dad comes home steaming and starts yelling about how everything's not fair to him … In fact, now I come to think of it, I might gonna have to come and live with you in your house"

-OG-

A _ **/N: Thank you for your feedback; your reviews are what keep me going. I know that the atmosphere of this changed abruptly mid-chapter, but I imagine that that's what happens when something like that happens, that it comes completely out of the blue and changes things in a heartbeat.**_

 _ **So, back home for Molly but CJ is still out there ….**_


	8. Chapter 8

The Land Rover ride to Ankara airport should have had a déjà vu feeling to it, it was less than a month since she'd been setting out on the same journey back to the U.K., but the circumstances were so different this time that it all felt a bit unreal. The only thing that was the same was that once again he hadn't put in an appearance as she'd left, something she'd convinced herself that he would do, that he wouldn't just let her go without saying goodbye and she couldn't quite get her head round the fact that she was never, ever coming back here, which meant that the tears weren't far from the surface.

There were four of them with her on the flight to Heathrow which meant that there were enough distractions to stop the self-pity that she was just about keeping a lid on. The group included Grace, who was continually carping, bitching and moaning about having to go on to Washington, so that in the end they'd all started yelling at her to shut the fuck up and although none of them had yet started drinking, there was a definite air of biding their time until they could relax and find a bar. They all, with the exception of Grace who didn't normally drink and anyway couldn't afford to be refused boarding on the flight to the States, intended to get well and truly plastered.

They didn't actually achieve their objective, the price of booze in the airport bars meant that abstinence suddenly seemed like a really good idea, although they agreed they would meet up in town before they were sent off to wherever they were going next, although Molly wasn't sure it would ever actually happen. They weren't really mates, except for Grace who would be back in America so wouldn't be there anyway, they were just working colleagues who liked each other and who'd shared a lot of stuff, but not really drinking buddies at the end of the day.

By the time the taxi dropped her outside the maisonette in east Ham she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, the long journey coupled with all the emotional hassle of the last few days was taking its toll, so that the minute her mother enfolded her in a hug that spoke volumes about how glad she was that her daughter was home, safe and sound, she burst into tears. The whole family were waiting for her upstairs, even her father was foregoing good drinking time, although he disappeared off to the pub very shortly after patting her arm and greeting her with a gruff "Alright, mate?" A bowl of Heinz tomato soup and some Mother's Pride made her feel like a little kid again, a little kid who'd been a bit poorly but whose mum and Nan were fussing round trying to make her feel better.

The 'glad to be home' phase lasted for almost a week and then the cracks started to appear and widen. Bella was complaining loudly all the time to anyone who would listen that it wasn't fair, why did she have to go in the top bunk again, when it was Molly who was the one who'd chosen to leave home and be away for years and had now chosen to come back, so that Belinda ended up yelling at her. She was afraid that Molly would just disappear again at any second which would make it Bella's fault, even though she knew that it wouldn't be really, that her eldest daughter would be off again in the very near future and there was nothing that anyone could do that would change that, it was just that she didn't want to even think about it.

Molly was bored and restless, and as the days went by, she got increasingly angry with him. She wasn't used to having nothing to do all day, and was irritating the fuck out of everyone by constantly clearing up, picking up and tidying away, nagging at them all the time for dropping things wherever they last used them and never putting anything away. She dusted and polished constantly so that her mother kept begging her to stop and to please sit down and have a cuppa or to come and watch tele for a bit, but Molly needed to keep moving, to keep herself occupied so that she didn't have time to dwell on what had happened or to ask herself why she was suddenly so bloody angry with him. She didn't realise that she was, in fact, driving her mother nuts, that her constant cleaning felt like a criticism, or that her family were bearing the brunt of the intense irritation and bitter disappointment she felt towards a very tall man with dark curly hair and deep brown eyes who had somehow joined the long list of men who had let her down.

She needed to get back to work, to stop sitting around because she had far too much time to think about him and to wonder what he was doing and despite the fact that she was so mad at him for some reason that she didn't understand, to cross her fingers that he was okay, that there weren't any other nut jobs out there just waiting for a chance to blow people off the face of the earth.

She began to examine everything he'd ever said to her and decided that she only had his bloody word for him being divorced, that maybe his wife lived somewhere else, Bath for instance, and to try and work out what his relationship with Flora really was, she'd seemed to be pretty sure of herself, and he was a bloody soldier after all, she of all people should know that soldiers can't be trusted. She'd been happy when she'd first met him, well maybe happy wasn't the right word, but she'd been okay, had learned to cope with the bad shit that the last soldier had thrown at her, and now look at her, when would she ever learn?

Ten days after her arrival home she heard that she was off to Lampedusa in southern Italy, that there was a huge number of people needing help there after coming across the Mediterranean and it couldn't come quickly enough for her.

-OG-

"But who is he, Molls?"

Belinda had been deeply impressed at the size, the beauty and the obvious cost of the bouquet that had arrived earlier for Molly, the pink raffia tie round the pink and white rigid cellophane collar held it into this enormous perfect circle and she'd never seen anything quite like it, well, neither had Molly for that matter, it was the first time anyone had ever given her flowers, let alone sent them. The bouquet had now been given pride of place in the middle of the table in the living room and Belinda kept getting up from her chair to tweak one or two blooms into slightly different positions, then standing back to admire them again.

"Just someone I met out there, it really don't matter who he is Mum"

"Obviously thinks a lot of you"

"Yeah, well, not sure about that"

"What's the matter with him, married is he?"

"Nah" She thought for a moment "Well yeah he is actually, nah he's not, I dunno, he's sort of divorced"

"Are you sure?" Belinda frowned "I've never heard of anyone being sort of divorced"

"Yeah I'm sure and anyhow we wasn't together or nothing, we was just friends, mates, that's all" Molly paid her trump card for getting her mother to leave it alone "He's a lot older than me"

She could hardly tell Belinda that she'd stayed in his flat for two weeks and that there'd been no sign of a wife, her mother didn't even know she'd been in the U.K. and would be horribly hurt that she'd been home but stayed somewhere else and hadn't even called let alone visited, something that made Molly feel guilty now. She also couldn't tell her mother that she had started to get a sort of crush on him but that it had all gone to shit when the bomb had gone off, or that she missed seeing him smile at her.

"Does he know that? It don't look like it from these flowers Molls, and how old is he anyway?"

"Not sure really, I dunno, maybe nine or ten years, and of course he knows Mum"

"That's nothing, thought you was going to say he was your dad's age or summat, some sort of dirty old man"

The message on the card didn't say what she'd expected, she'd thought it would say something on the lines of "Good luck" or "Nice to have known you" or something, or just simply have his name as the sender, she knew the flowers would be from him, there was no-one else who would have sent them, especially ones like these that must have cost a fortune. In fact the message was simple; "It's quiet and lonely" echoing the words that he'd said on the phone before everything had gone to shit. He hadn't put his name on it or anything, but she smiled and put the card in her pocket, then thought better of it, there was something slimy leaked all over it and she didn't want to think what it was, so it went back in the bin with the envelope.

-OG-

Standing in his metal box and watching as the Land Rover pulled away from the main gates, he had seen the way she'd looked around before she got in and knew that she had been checking to see if he was going to come and say goodbye, which he wasn't. It was better for everyone all round if she just left and he just let her go, he could then concentrate properly on the job in hand, she would be safe and he wouldn't be stepping over the boundaries that he had placed so firmly on everyone before they'd arrived.

Things at the camp changed drastically after the 'incident', it was now officially a one-off by some rogue insurgent, nothing to do with ISIS or any other of the organised groups that they were there to keep out of the camp, or so the media briefing went, but the military presence was more than tripled immediately with the inclusion of Canadian, French and Icelandic troops, plus more boots on the ground from the U.K. It was all designed to make everyone feel a bit more prepared if there should be the trouble with a capital T that the Americans at NATO Command seemed to be expecting. There was also, of course, a whole new bunch of aid workers, replacements for those who'd been re-deployed plus a few extra, and all of them seemed happy enough to wear the Kevlar vests, but he couldn't seem to break his habit of constantly checking to see whether a little dark-haired girl with a long plait and green eyes was wearing the bloody thing, a little dark-haired girl who wasn't even there anymore, but who still, apparently, had the power to distract him.

His frustration that he couldn't just switch off and forget all about her was compounded by the fact that he had no contact details for her at all, he hadn't even got a phone number, he'd used his own land line when she'd been in the flat, so he had, in fact, let her go out of his life without having an address or anything, he hadn't thought he'd need it, or want it. All he knew was what she'd told him, that her parents lived in east Ham, as far as he could remember very close to Upton Park, which was apparently where West Ham play football, and nothing else.

-OG-

Molly was wide awake in her bottom bunk still trying to decide whether to make contact with him or not, she'd scrolled through her phone and found that she did still have his number from when she'd stayed in his flat. She kept telling herself that this wasn't the olden days, that contacting him to say thanks didn't mean she chasing after him, that it was 2015 not 1915, and it was the least she could do, it was just good manners. All she needed to do was make up her mind whether to e-mail or text, she definitely wasn't phoning, there'd more than likely be awkward silences if she did that, where both of them would struggle to think what to say next, anyhow he might not want to speak to her.

' _U saying I'm noisy? - btw flowers R lovely – mum says ta M'_

' _No - Y mum? - they wer x'_

' _I know – got no vase – how did U find me? M x'_

' _Easy, asked someone – car boot for vase? Btw I am nice C x'_

This was so far the biggest lie he could remember ever telling anyone ever, it had been anything but easy finding her and had involved hours of sitting in his cold, damp and dreary metal box in the half light of the evenings using the laptop, when the internet was working, to research the name Dawes in east London, of which there seemed to be about a million hits and he didn't even have her father's name to get an initial. This was followed by a lot of use of Google Earth, but even so, he hadn't been 100% certain that he'd got it right, until he got her text.

' _Soldiers R not nice – No car boot in Italy - work on tan instead –x'_

' _I am nice – R U already there? x'_

' _Next week x'_

' _Don't get sunburnt x'_

' _OK – nag-nag-nag x'_

' _U love me really – home soon then car boot? xx'_

' _OK xx'_

OG-

Lampedusa was a total eye-opener for Molly, the relatively small number of aid workers and the sheer volumes of migrants pouring off tiny inflatable boats, soaked, exhausted and sea sick, different nationalities, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Syrians, even Pakistanis, most of them without any papers, some in family groups, some with children and some not, old people and hundreds of single blokes and girls. Many of them had been advised by God knows who, probably whoever had charged them a small fortune for their place in the boat, to destroy any papers they'd got otherwise they risked being sent back. All of it made the camp in Turkey look modest in terms of numbers, but the worst thing for Molly was that she was so tense.

Every loud noise, every time a door slammed, every time someone shouted or dropped anything, she jumped out of her skin and every time a child screamed for any reason she broke out in a cold sweat all over her body. She'd lost the easy ingrained trust in people that she'd always had, so that she could see for the first time why Charles had nagged at her continually to wear that stab proof vest, now she wouldn't dream of going out without it. The so-called 'incident' had left her jumpy and suspicious, where once she'd been relaxed and confident, so that every time she looked at the crush of people she couldn't help wondering whether any one of them posed a danger, and then hated herself for feeling like that.

She wanted to ring him, to talk to him, to hear his voice full of reassurance but if she did she'd have to be her usual chirpy, chippy self and she was afraid that he'd be able to tell that there was something badly wrong. The longer she left it, the harder it got so that in the end she decided to give it a miss. It wasn't as if his text had been romantic or loving, even though the references to car boot sales had been his way of saying that he wanted to see her, she now couldn't imagine them ever being together anywhere except in her daydreams, so she managed to ignore the 'missed calls' she'd had from his number.

The idea of sitting on a beach somewhere and working on her suntan was about as far from the reality of life in Lampedusa as it was possible to get, the Spring weather was becoming beautiful, warm and sunny but still fresh feeling, the place was beautiful with gorgeous beaches and lovely little villages, but the small number of aid workers trying to look after thousands of migrants meant they were all working impossibly long hours with minimal time off which left no time to do anything other than work, eat and sleep.

The other problem was the media, film crews and news journalists were everywhere you looked, there were almost more of them than there were aid workers, and they were often in the way as they scrabbled amongst themselves to get the 'best' photos, children with big soulful eyes were favourite, but they also searched frantically for English-speaking migrants so that they could be coached and encouraged to make politically explosive statements.

The only upside was that when she got her first leave, a whole six days, it was so close to London that she could just go home and sleep. The noise of the kids rampaging round the house, Mum and Dad shouting at one another and at Nan, the blaring sound of the television on what sounded like full volume with everyone shouting to make themselves heard above it, and Mum's theatrical "Sssshhhhssshing", meant that her sleep was a bit sporadic, but she was exhausted and felt as though she could sleep through anything, not least because it felt safe.

Belinda bought her a cup of tea as Molly sat up in her bunk and her mother perched at the foot drinking her own cup of tea, obviously looking for the right time to chat about something.

"That bloke what sent you them flowers that time Molls, you know, the one in Turkey"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your lovely reviews and for the words of encouragement from my fellow ff authors, made me feel so much better to know that I'm not the only one to get my knickers in a twist sometimes.**_

 _ **Chapter 9 will be uploaded on Monday now, I'll be out tomorrow so will have no access to my laptop, but hope everyone has a lovely weekend.**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: Although it doesn't affect this chapter or the next, I have had to do some judicious re-jigging and re-writing of some of the rest of the story in light of the horrendous events of last Friday in Paris, because some of the fiction became a little too close to the fact.**_

-OG-

"Yeah, what about him?"

"I think I forgot to tell you that he rang here, posh bloke, name of ….. can't remember now, I did write it down somewhere …, can't think what I did with it now, worried about you he was, said he couldn't get hold of you, he seemed like a nice bloke though, Moll"

"Charles, his name's Charles and no, you never said he'd rung" She shrugged "Yeah he is nice….. Did he leave a message or anything?"

"Nah, not the first time he rung, just wanted to know if you was okay"

"What did you say to him, Mum?"

"Said you was alright, but you was very busy out there, had no time off or nothing, was that okay?"

"Yeah, thanks, …. hang on, the first time he rang? How many times did he ring?"

"Twice, second time he wanted to ask for you to ring him, you know, when you got home, but this is the first time you've been home since then, so it's no biggie is it?"

"Nah, its okay, but you know how it is …" She cast around trying desperately to think of some way of changing the subject.

"Not really, sorry I forgot, Molls, really I thought I'd told you" Belinda had a very contrite look on her face as she leaned across and patted her daughter's hand "I thought he sounded lovely, so if he's not married or nothing, what's wrong with him? "

"Nothing, well, apart from he's a soldier"

"I know, he said, but, you know what? He seemed nice"

"Yeah, Mum, you said" Molly giggled "Are you trying to set me up here?"

"You could do a hell of a lot worse, Molls, he seemed lovely, and he's obviously got a bob or two"

"Having a bob or two don't make you lovely, Mum, although actually he's bloody good looking as well" She giggled again "None of that really matters though, does it?"

"It does if you ain't got it Moll, you take it from me, so, come on, what's wrong with him?"

"Nothing, there's nothing wrong with him" Molly took a gulp from her mug of tea, "It's just, you know" She shrugged "He's most probably going to be home soon, anyhow, if he isn't already, and I'll be back in Italy by the weekend, so …. "She shrugged again and got out of bed; anxious to get away and change the subject because there was no way she was going to discuss what had happened with her mother.

Tossing and turning in bed, turning her pillow over constantly, she was totally and utterly wide awake and bitterly regretting that she'd been asleep for most of the day. She thought about putting the light on and trying to read but that would only set Bella off whinging again, so she started trying to work out how long it had been since Charles and the rest of them had arrived in Turkey to see if she could perhaps work out when they were due to come back home, then had to give it up as a bad job because every time she did it the answer came out different.

-OG-

Four tours of Afghanistan, a serious life-threatening then career-threatening injury with time spent recovering, a spell at Headley court, weeks and months, in fact, years spent on army bases sharing his life with hundreds of squaddies, living in barracks and drinking too much in the officers' mess as well as hundreds of assorted pubs in dozens of different locations, a disastrous marriage, hours spent running, pounding the ground to get and then keep fit, none of that had really worried him before. He was used to being alone and being the responsible officer, being under pressure to watch out for the conduct and safety of other people, he had a duty of care to make sure nothing happened to anyone in his charge, in the same way that he was used to the huge amounts of camaraderie and fun that were part of army life and all that was still there.

In fact, life in the camp went on pretty much as it had done right from the beginning, patrols and endless people 'watching', running around the camp with the lads and threatening any lack of effort with a spell of 'latrine clean', paperwork, endless fucking paperwork, and talking to Command, nothing he hadn't done a thousand times before, but what he wasn't used to was this feeling of restlessness. He wasn't used to the feeling that there was something missing when he was on his own or the realisation that his time with her had been the thing he had most looked forward to when he'd got out of his bed every morning, and it was gone.

He'd phoned her mother, keeping his fingers crossed that she was now in regular contact with her family. He'd got a bit worried when she didn't answer her mobile, but he hadn't left messages, he wasn't sure what he wanted to say, wasn't sure what he _could_ say when he looked back at the way he'd been the last time he'd seen her, and there was always a chance that she'd recognised his number and decided not to have anything more to do with him. If that was the case messages would be pointless anyway, but on the other hand their text conversation hadn't led him to assume anything like that, it wasn't exactly loving or even particularly flirty, but it wasn't acrimonious either.

His chats with Belinda were ultimately unsatisfactory, initially he couldn't get over how much like Molly she sounded, but it had been a pretty unrealistic expectation that two short conversations with Mrs. Dawes would help wave some magic wand and tell him everything he wanted to know. Although she seemed nice enough and had tried to make him feel better by emphasising just how busy they were in Italy, he still didn't know if Molly even thought about him at all, so all he'd been able to do was leave a message asking her to ring him when she got back. It now seemed that the only option open to him was to wait out until he was back in the U.K. but, and it was a very big but, four weeks felt like a long time.

-OG-

… _.. wish I could turn back time_

 _I want to_

 _Everybody hurts someday_

 _Everybody hurts …_

Molly wrenched the earpieces out of her ears, listening to this shit certainly wasn't helping the way she felt. It had been an incredibly busy day, they'd been hard at it since daybreak and she'd put her ears in to stop anyone thinking she was up for a chat as she saton her own at a table outside one of the pavement cafés. She was watching the passengers from a huge white cruise ship that had docked earlier in the evening as they strolled up and down the quayside, most of them looking the other way when they passed the small huddles of migrants who had set up camp there and weren't doing anything, just sitting, looking. She'd rammed on her sunglasses in spite of it getting dark, they hid the tears that had started leaking from her eyes again, she'd been convinced that she could find out what she'd wanted to know by just making a call, so once again reality had come as a bitter disappointment.

She'd done a hell of a lot of explaining and tried some pleading and wondered whether she could get away with telling some enormous porkies, but eventually she'd had to give up looking for a sympathetic ear when it became obvious that no matter how hard she tried she wasn't going to get anywhere. No-one was going to tell her what she wanted to know, they kept on pushing her onto other people, who kept asking the same bleeding questions, and she didn't think it would work if she changed her story mid-call to start lying, so she'd had to accept that she couldn't do what she wanted.

She was trudging back to her billet when the tears started again, her chest was shuddering and she shook with sobs, tears pouring down her face. She wasn't sure why she was crying the way she was, she certainly wouldn't have been able to explain it to anyone, it was just that her life totally sucked, in the last few weeks everything that could go to shit had done just that, and now she needed to pull herself together, and sharpish. Okay, the disappointment was bleeding awful, but this wasn't the fucking end of the world, she _would_ get over it, she'd got over worse, but nothing worked, still the tears poured down her face.

She knew that the obvious thing was to phone him, to say something about what she was trying to do or ask him what he thought, whether he'd like her to do it, but somehow after what her mum had told her, she'd set her heart on doing it her way. She wasn't sure why, maybe it was because she was shit scared that if she asked him first he might say 'no, don't do that'.

As soon as she reached her room and she'd managed to do it without coming face to face with the Signor a, the lovely motherly old dear whose home she was billeted in, a lady who didn't speak a word of English but who would have fussed over her until she'd made everything far worse, Molly got out her phone and did the only thing she could think of.

"Gracie, its Moll"

"Hey! Wow!" Grace started shouting when she heard her voice "What's up, Molly?" Then as she heard her friend start crying "Shit, don't tell me you've gotten yourself into difficulties?"

"No I have not! Well not the way you mean anyhow"

As soon as Grace answered her phone and Molly heard her familiar drawl, she had burst into tears for the third time that evening, leading Grace to draw all sorts of wrong conclusions. But just talking to her had made Molly start to feel better, the American girl's 'have a nice day' customer service cheesy tone of voice, which had sometimes pissed her off big time in Turkey, made her giggle, as did Grace's assumption that the only thing she would cry about was if she was pregnant.

Grace immediately volunteered to get her the information that Molly wanted so badly, her only proviso being that no-one and she meant absolutely no-one was ever to find out where she'd got it from, getting caught looking up any sort of military flight details from any air base abroad would be a big enough crime, she reckoned, to have her wearing an orange jumpsuit at Guantanamo for about fifty years regardless of whose dick her mom offered to put her lips round, and her other condition was that Molly had to promise faithfully to give her all the details afterwards, leaving nothing out.

Molly couldn't believe that all this was such a big deal, so bloody secret, but she didn't know what to say to Grace, how to thank her, she'd managed, probably because of where she was working or even who she was working for, to succeed where Molly had been such an epic fail. She could only hope that her mate was joking about the consequences of the risk she'd just taken.

Now all she had to do was persuade whoever it was to swap weekends off, find a Travelodge, hire a car, get to Milan without an endless ferry ride, which meant she had to find the cheapest possible flight from Lampedusa then hope that it would get her to Milan in time for the EasyJet flight to Gatwick, then book the EasyJet flight, all of which, apart from swapping shifts, would cost money she wasn't sure she'd got. Her recent trip home had used up most of the money she'd saved from her wages over the past year and she wasn't even sure she'd got enough credit left on her card to buy one cheap flight, let alone the rest. Although she hadn't used it for months, it had taken a real bashing before Turkey and minimum payments don't clear balances very fast, or so she'd found out. Her fall-back position was the one she'd always used, so she crossed her fingers and everything else and applied for an increase in her credit limit ….. again ….. and once again Mr. Visa played ball, although not by as much as she'd hoped so that she knew that she must be getting quite close to the big fat 'fuck off', she was just glad that it wasn't this time.

-OG-

"Oh go on, please, pretty please, I'll be really grateful, I'll make it up to you ….. promise"

Molly was in full wheedling mode as she followed Nasri along the quayside on their way to where an Italian naval vessel was tying up, a naval vessel that was packed with hundreds more migrants who had been plucked out of their tiny boats drifting in the Mediterranean or, in the case of some of them, out of the sea where they'd been clinging to whatever they could find. Molly was cursing that it would have to be Nasri and not one of the girls, he was a young co-worker who had an extremely inflated idea of his own desirability and he never took his eyes off of her tits when he was talking to her. Being one of the very few males, he thought that it was only a matter of time before one of them recognised how attractive he was and how much they wanted to shag him, and that he only had to be there to be in with a chance, so that the girls gave him a very wide berth most of the time.

But Nasri was the only one with the weekend off that she wanted, or needed as she'd told him, or, as she'd got more and more carried away with the begging, needed _desperately_ as a matter of life or death.

"How will you make it up to me, Molly?"

Nasri leered, using the expression he'd practised in front of the mirror in the bathroom of his billet, he'd told himself that it made him irresistible and would definitely pay off one of these days.

"Not the way you're thinking, sunshine, no bloody chance" Molly forced a laugh and tried not to shudder as she slapped him down, the thought of paying what he was thinking of charging was enough make the flesh crawl off her bones, however much she wanted to swap weekends it definitely wasn't worth what he had in mind.

"Tell me again why you want this?"

"My friend Grace who was with me in Turkey, she's gonna be in London that weekend, she lives in Washington, you know, in America, and I wanna see her, I haven't seen her since we was together when that bomb went off"

Molly lied to him without any compunction at all, Grace wouldn't mind and if she told Nasri the truth about why she wanted to swap, he'd definitely refuse without any further hesitation.

"I'll think about it"

Nasri was enjoying himself, it wasn't often that any of the girls bothered to speak to him about anything other than essentials to do with work; they usually treated him as a complete irrelevance, so he was going to keep this going as long as he possibly could. Saying _'yes'_ eventually was never actually in doubt, he wanted Molly to be happy with him, mainly because he was slightly afraid of her tongue if he refused to do what she wanted, she had a bit of a reputation for being sharp with words, which he didn't want to test out for himself.

"What's to think about? You let me have your long weekend and you can have my whole week the week after, so you get the rest of your time off and all mine, so it's win, win all round for you, what do you say, mate?" Molly was beginning to seriously wonder whether this was worth it "Come on Nasri, stop being a bell-end" She put her hand out for him to shake "Deal?"

"What is a bell-end?"

"Don't worry about it mate, come on, deal?"

"Yes alright, yes," He took her outstretched hand and held onto it for a fraction too long "Deal"

-OG-


	10. Chapter 10

"Yer a bit early, me duck"

"I weren't sure what time they was due in, I've been working in Italy, only got back last night"

"Depends which lot you're waiting for"

The journey home yesterday had been absolute shit, the flight from Lampedusa to Milan had been delayed so that she'd missed the one to Gatwick and had then had to hang about for hours waiting to see whether everyone showed up for the later one, or whether there'd be a no-show or a cancellation. She'd then had to buy Stelios a new car to get on the pissing thing, if he still owned EasyJet, she didn't know and she certainly didn't care, all she knew was they was supposed to be cheap flights, but were a bleeding long way from her idea of cheap.

When she'd arrived at Gatwick she'd had to queue for bloody ever for her hire car, even though it was getting really late there were still all these hundreds of people milling about by the hire car places, and then the Travelodge at the airport had no rooms left, so she'd had to go on to the one at Horley, which, okay, was only a couple or three miles but Molly was totally knackered and she'd planned on getting her head down before she had to drive. She'd had her license for more than two years, but had only driven once since and that had been in broad daylight just after she'd passed her test and not when it was pitch dark and she was knackered.

Despite it being well after midnight when she'd got into bed, she was so terrified of sleeping in that she'd only dozed in fits and starts had kept jolting awake to check on the time. She was filled with a sort of sick nervous anticipation, she'd got no bloody idea what time they were due in, or how long it would take for her to drive there or find the place, or even whether they would let her in without some sort of pass or official invite or something. On top of all that, she now had some serious doubts as to whether this was the shit-hot idea she'd thought it was when she'd started it all.

She'd planned to look all cool and smart and as sophisticated as she could manage, even though she knew that it might be pretty ambitious bearing in mind that her hair badly needed a trim given the state of her wardrobe, her best jeans were definitely a bit on the well-worn side, but she was going to wear the new and very beautiful top which she'd bought at the airport in Milan while she was waiting, a sea green top which made her eyes look even more green than usual and which had cost her a bleeding fortune. It had been fatal being kept hanging about for hours where there were nice shops and nice clothes shops at that, especially where an assistant kept on saying 'bellissimo' when she'd tried the top on, so she'd bought something she couldn't begin to afford which would most likely take her well over her new agreed credit limit.

She'd been going to blow dry her hair till it was all sleek and shiny and to do her make-up properly, but actually in the end she'd been so keyed up and worried about how long it would take her to get there and whether or not she'd have enough time if she went really slowly and carefully, or whether it would make her late, so she hadn't dried her hair properly, just tied it back, and hadn't put on any make-up at all. Her hair was now a mass of uncontrollable curls, her face was pale and washed out looking so that the make-up she did try to put on soaked straight into her dehydrated skin and her top was all creased up the back from sitting for so long all tense and hunched up in the car. Not only that, she was sure she was getting damp patches under her arms from being sweaty with nerves. With her wild hair and tatty jeans she felt as if she looked more like a reject from a C-Beebies audition than anything else.

The friendly soldier had come across to talk to her as she'd sat on one of the hard plastic chairs in the arrivals hall yawning so hard that she was making her eyes water, a soldier who obviously thought she was more than a bit nuts to be there so early, there was no-one else waiting, in fact the arrivals hall was completely deserted and everything was all locked up. He had gone off to find someone so as he could check on the ETA for her, then come back with the good news that they were due this morning and she only had about three and a half hours to wait, but that the coffee shop would open its doors in about an hour or so when she'd be able to get a cup of tea or something. She wanted to give him a dead sarky 'oh, lucky old me' but it weren't his fault that she was far too previous, and he'd been kind, so she smiled and thanked him then decided to go back out to the car and close her aching eyes for an hour or so. She couldn't get more crumpled looking that she already was.

A couple of hours sleep in a hunched up heap in the front passenger seat of the car did nothing for her aches and pains, the state of her hair or for her top, but it did wipe away the worst of the dark circles on her pallid sleep-deprived face, so that she was able to stand the sight of herself once she'd splashed it with lashings of cold water, put on some make-up and then further improved the way she felt by brushing her teeth. She knew she still had a bleeding long wait in front of her, but the soldier had been right and she was able to buy a cuppa and a bacon roll which was nectar, she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten anything that tasted so bloody good, or come to think of it, eaten anything at all and she was starving.

The nearer it got to crunch time, the more and more crowded the terminal got, loads of family groups and older couples, obviously mums and dads, young women with babies and buggies and older children running about, and the more thronged the place got, the more convinced Molly got that, once again in her life, she was about to totally fuck things up. A flight arrived, not the one that she was waiting for, and the hall was filled with noise and happy smiley faces, and people hugging and kissing, and it occurred to her that she'd got no idea whether any of these other people waiting or the fresh lots coming in had actually come to meet him. God, she'd pulled some strokes in her time, been known for it in fact, but this bloody hare-brained scheme took the bleeding biscuit.

She was beginning to panic and feel that the best thing she could do was just leave, this was complete fucking madness, she wasn't cheap, she didn't throw herself at any bloke, so what the fuck was she doing here, apart from doing exactly that? Shit, she'd got so carried away with all the planning and the sorting out of arrangements and stuff that she hadn't stopped to think it through. This wasn't her, her days of hanging round trying to make some dickhead happy were well over, and she didn't run after blokes, any blokes, even posh ones with posh flats in Guildford, no matter how good looking or nice they were, any more than she did her shopping in Dover Street, she did bed sits and charity shops for fuck's sake and got her bubble bath and ready meals from Tesco, she did stopping out in the pub till two in the morning then having a bag of chips on the way home, so what the fuck was she doing here? She began to grab hold of her stuff which had somehow spread itself about a bit, when she noticed that she'd dripped tea down her top, something that doubled her determination to bugger off out of here and keep hold of some sort of pride.

The noise and the level of excitement in the hall started to build up again as the first few familiar faces came through the doors to arrivals and all she could think about was escaping without being seen. The chaos of noisy reunions gave her the cover she needed to slip away behind the mass of people hugging and waving 'welcome home' placards as the soldiers she'd last seen in Turkey greeted their friends and families with hugs and kisses and shouts and broad grins while excited kids ran around making a racket. She couldn't see him anywhere, not that she really looked, she was concentrating on keeping her head down so that no-one would see her and God forbid, recognise her.

Leaning up against the wall outside to get her breath back, she was trying to decide whether to just jump in the car and piss off, or whether to stand well out of the way and see whether he left with anyone. She could feel the sun getting quite warm on her face as she tilted her head up and closed her eyes then wished with all her might that she was back in Lampedusa using the time off to sit on some beach instead of standing here doing her best to make a total prannet of herself.

"Hey"

His face was a picture, it was wreathed in the biggest smile of welcome she could ever have wished for in her wildest dreams as he leaned over towards her as if he was going to kiss her on her cheek then looked around and remembered where he was and who was around and checked himself.

"Hello"

"You look beautiful"

"You don't look too shabby yourself"

She had a huge smile on her face that almost matched his, then when she looked a bit closer, she saw that he was very pale with dark circles under his eyes and that he hadn't shaved, in fact he looked a lot like he'd got a killer hangover.

"Actually no, you look a bit shit, heavy night last night, was it?"

"No, it bloody well wasn't, well, except for the guard duty"

"Sorry, and I don't look that great either" She still had the same huge smile on her face as she glanced down at herself and pointed to the stain on her crumpled top "Bit careless with me cuppa"

"You look gorgeous and you know it" His smile still matched hers, making him look just like she remembered from the camp, before asking "What are you doing here, are you meeting someone?"

"Nah, had nothing better to do this morning so I thought I'd just nip over from Italy and pop in here for a cuppa" She looked up at his face and pretended to suck her teeth "Course I'm meeting someone you numpty …." She paused, breathed in deeply and then took a real gamble "You?"

He'd walked out of the building with Corporal Easter and some of the others and had been making his way towards a small coach which was parked outside the terminal doors, its engine already running as they began to board. It was Easter who'd seen her standing off to one side, Easter who'd nudged him and pointed her out, so that he'd immediately dropped his Bergen and the rest of his kit on the pavement and used his long stride to be in front of her before she could even think of rushing off.

They were now having two different conversations, one with their words and one with their eyes.

"What are you doing out here then, why didn't you come in so that I could see you as soon as I arrived? I might have missed you out here"

"I dunno, I was in there and then I got all shy 'n that, I weren't sure whether I should be here or not, so I come out here"

"I couldn't be happier that you are here, it's lovely to see you, are you okay?"

"Yeah, you?"

He nodded still smiling, and then frowned as if he was puzzled about something.

"How did you know we were coming back this morning?"

"Asked someone"

"Who?"

"I _can't_ remember his name, I had to sleep with so many of the buggers before I found the right one to blackmail, you can't possibly expect me to remember all their bleeding names"

"Ooookaaay, so ….. let's start with the truth this time, shall we?"

"What, you don't believe me?"

"Not for a second, so how did you really find out?" He was back to grinning all over his face, then caught the corner of his lip between his teeth, his eyes still locked onto hers.

"A little bird told me, and I can't tell you her name cos it's classified and she says she'll be wearing orange in Guantanamo for the rest of her bleeding life if I tell you"

"How is Grace?"

"Don't know who you're talking about"

"No of course not" He put his head back and roared with laughter "How did you get here, by the way?"

"Hired a car, what do you think, I hitched or I blagged a lift or summat?"

"Wouldn't surprise me" He frowned "I thought you couldn't drive, how did you hire a car if you haven't passed your test, if you haven't got a licence?" 

"I never said that, that was you what said that, not me, course I've got a license"

"You, Miss Dawes, are something else, you really are" He bit his bottom lip again in a vain attempt to control the smirk that kept escaping "You do know that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know" She wrinkled her nose and indicated the waiting coach, Corporal Easter and the lads who were all glued to the spectacle of their CO chatting up some girl in the car park at Brize Norton, a girl they'd last seen months ago in a refugee camp in Turkey "Are that lot waiting for you?"

"Shit, I'd forgotten all about them, wait here, don't go anywhere" He turned and started to stride towards the coach, then turned round to face her, walking backwards and grinning all over his face "You are going to give me a lift, aren't you?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: So stage two of their 'friendship' begins …. Thank you for sticking with me on this and for continuing to review, it makes all the difference and makes writing longer stories worth it.**_


	11. Chapter 11

"Are you home for long?"

"Just a few days, gotta be back Monday morning"

"Really? That's not long"

"Well it weren't me weekend off so I had to be nice to a dickhead to get him to swap to get any time off at all, what about you?"

"I'm glad you did, swap I mean" He looked at her sideways and grinned as she stopped by one of the cars "Got to go in on Monday, then two weeks leave"

The last four weeks had seemed endless; he'd been behaving like Sam did when he was counting the number of sleeps till Christmas or his birthday. Hard as he'd tried not to, he'd been mentally ticking off the days that were left before the tour ended, something that had always been reserved for looking forward to being with Sam, and, before it all went to shit, seeing Rebecca. After his relationship with Rebecca had fallen to bits, he'd been determined that it was something that wouldn't happen again, that he would never again let himself get involved in any sort of close emotional tie with anyone, long distance relationships were a recipe for disaster while there was still a chance of him going on active service.

Logically, it was all kinds of stupid but he'd intended calling Belinda again as soon as he was home to find out when Molly was due back, and then, depending on the answer, perhaps use his post-deployment leave to go out to Italy, although she probably wouldn't have any time off to spend with him, but that didn't actually matter. And here she was, standing in front of him, looking just as beautiful as he remembered and smiling at him and from the moment Easter had pointed her out he'd felt his own smile break out, a smile that was now impossible to suppress. They didn't touch each other as they walked to the car park side by side, his first instinct had been to sweep her up in a huge hug but there was an incredibly curious audience less than twenty foot away, an audience who would thoroughly enjoy any floor show. He'd forgotten just how small she was next to him, but for some reason it wasn't the problem he'd thought it was when he'd first met her, now she just seemed tiny and fragile, and he couldn't give a flying fuck about what colour her hair was, none of it mattered, she was just Molly and that was all that mattered.

"Lucky you" She grimaced "Have I made things, you know, a bit awkward, turning up here like this? You know with the rest of your lot?"

"Nope, I'm the boss, so anyone who has anything to say will be volunteering to clean latrines, possibly for the rest of their life"

"Oh"

"Are you going to give me a lift home?"

"If you like, not sure you'll fit in the bottom bunk though, you're a bit tall"

"What?" He sounded completely confused, as though he hadn't got a clue what she was talking about.

"You said you wanted to go home and we've only got these bunks, I mean, I usually go in the bottom one, but I'll go up top just this once, seeing as how"

"I didn't mean your home, idiot, I meant mine" He snorted a laugh down his nose, then shook his head at her, but looked a bit anxious as he started putting his kit in the boot "But if that's where you want to go, just say"

"I'd say if I did, but I don't, and I'm driving so you'll have to go where I wanna go anyway" She giggled "You haven't really got a lot of choice, have you?" She looked up at his face and wondered why he hadn't kissed her yet, he'd looked so pleased to see her but he hadn't touched her and the coach-load of interested spectators had now buggered off, so she was beginning to wonder whether she was getting this all wrong again. Maybe he'd said what he meant to say, and only that, that he was just asking her to give him a lift home and then he expected her to piss off to wherever it was she was going to stay, she hadn't asked and he hadn't said, so she didn't know.

"You'll have to stay really quiet when I'm driving, you can't talk to me at all, I mean, I know what you're like with your endless going on and on about stuff" She looked across at him again catching her tongue between her teeth in an attempt not to giggle "Driving here was the first time I've driven since I passed me test, so I've gotta concentrate really hard and I can't talk at the same time, don't even think I can listen"

"How long ago was that?"

"Couple of hours" She giggled again, deliberately misunderstanding him, then looked across at him as he pulled a face, raised his eyebrows, smiled and shook his head "Two years, well two and a bit really, so it was quite a long time ago"

"Christ you must be exhausted, that's a hell of a long way to drive if you're not used to it, oh and by the way, I never go "on and on" He put his hand out and stroked a stray curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear and Molly willed him with all her might to lean over and kiss her, something that didn't appear to be working that well as he went on "I'd drive if I could but I presume you're the only one insured on this thing, so do you want to go for walk or something first, stretch your legs a bit?"

"Nah, it's probably best if we get going, wanna get there before its dark"

"Molly, it's not going to be dark for hours, if you drive that slowly it'd probably be quicker to walk"

"I know" She pulled a face at him and considered sticking her tongue out, he obviously thought she was joking and she was, well, almost "Make up your mind before I start the bloody car cos I'm not stopping once I get going"

"Shit"

-OG-

Stiff didn't begin to describe the rigor mortis that had set in in her shoulders and neck when they finally pulled up outside the garages behind the flats in Guildford and Molly wasn't sure whether she would ever be able to move again. Not only were her shoulders and neck agony when she tried to straighten up but she had a blinding headache and her fingers were cramped like claws from gripping the steering wheel so hard. She was sure that if he didn't offer for her to stay for at least a couple of hours, meaning that she'd have to drive on to somewhere else, although God knows where, she'd fall on the floor, right here outside his garage, and howl.

He'd actually been a great passenger, hadn't stamped on an imaginary brake once or winced and shut his eyes once, well not that she'd noticed anyhow, and hadn't once yelled 'be careful' and had been relaxed enough to fall asleep with his head against the door pillar, or if he was faking being asleep he'd done it really well.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I always move like this, like me Nan on a bad day"

He'd got out of his side of the car and moved round to her, putting his hand out to help her from behind the wheel as Molly did her best to get out and straighten up and then let out the breath that she didn't realise she been almost holding for the last three hours. He'd suggested several times that it might be an idea to stop so that she could relax, have a rest and stretch her legs for a bit, but she'd turned him down every time, only asking him if he needed to stop for a pee cos she didn't, she knew that if she stopped she was never, ever going to be able to set off again.

"Shit ….., shit …, shit ….., bollocks" She straightened her back and dropped her hunched shoulders bit by little bit, tried and failed to move her head from side to side then unclenched her fingers enough to rub her temples "I am never, ever bollocking doing that again, ever"

"You did really well, you only scared the shit out of me once, maybe twice, but that's all" The tip of his tongue ran over his bottom lip before his teeth followed suit as Molly glared at him.

"Well that's just made bloody sure I won't be driving you anywhere ever again, hasn't it, so it really don't matter whether you was scared or not, does it, arsehole?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was only joking, I didn't mean it, you were totally brilliant and I wasn't scared at all, not once" He raised his eyebrows and smiled ruefully at her, totally regretting the impulse that had made him tease, he'd underestimated just how tired she was "I was only winding you up, honestly you drove beautifully, you're an absolute star"

"I've said before about not bleeding overdoing it"

"Come on, let's go and get ourselves sorted out, do you want me to carry you?"

"No"

-OG-

The potentially tricky issue of whether or not he was going to ask her to stay didn't actually arise, he just seemed to assume that she was staying so they'd simply gone up to the flat and he'd taken her bag through, dumped it in the spare room and told her to have a rest while he went to the shops for some basics, some tea bags and milk. She'd felt that she should volunteer to go with him, or to do something useful while he was gone, but he'd shaken his head and said that he would make up the beds when he got back, leaving her in no doubt that she wasn't expected to sleep with him. Although it felt nice that he hadn't jumped to the conclusion that she was immediately well up for it, she wasn't entirely sure she was happy with things the way they were, especially as he still hadn't kissed her or touched her at all.

"Can I have the one with the bathroom?"

"No, you bloody can't"

He'd put his head back and laughed as he'd answered, but she'd sort of expected him to say about them sharing it, but he hadn't, so she was now getting more and more afraid that there was nothing going to happen between them. Yes, it was nice that he hadn't tried to get into her knickers as soon as they'd closed the front door, their relationship hadn't ever been quite like that, anyway, but she wanted him to want her and it was beginning to look like she'd definitely got that a bit wrong, that she'd let her imagination and wishful thinking run away with her, just by way of a change.

"Well, can I have a bath then?"

"You might have to wait out a bit until the water's hot enough and I don't want you to fall asleep in there, we wouldn't want you to drown, would we? Have a little rest for a bit, then you can have a bath when I get back"

"You'd better go and let Floosie know you're back, else she'll be popping in as soon as you've gone out, she'll wanna come and check who's in here"

-OG-

She sat on the sofa and closed her eyes, she wanted to try and have a bit of a nap while he was gone, but switching off and relaxing proved to be impossible because every bit of her was totally shagged out, and she had a headache that was so bad it was making her feel sick and a bit shivery. It had been an extreme twenty four hours and not only was she totally wiped out, but also a bit tearful. This was not the way she'd imagined it was going to be, although what on earth she'd expected she didn't really know, just not this feeling of anti-climax, of being exhausted and let down.

When she woke up he was watching something with the sub-titles on, so he'd obviously tried not to wake her by turning on the sound, and had, at some point, lifted her legs so that she was now stretched out full length on the sofa with her head on a cushion and her feet in his lap. One of his hands was circling her ankle as his thumb idly stroked the bone; he appeared to be all absent minded, stroking it without thinking as he watched the screen, and she watched his face.

She shut her eyes again and pretended that she was still asleep then flexed her foot slightly to bring it into contact with his groin, and heard his sharp intake of breath so that she opened one eye very, very slightly to get a peek at him. She wanted to see whether he was looking at her so that she could then move a bit closer and open her eyes, if he saw she was awake he would maybe kiss her, but he wasn't looking at her at all, instead he'd tilted his head back onto the sofa, and, as she watched, he swallowed convulsively with his eyes tightly shut.

Before she, or the little demon who was now sitting inside her head, could make up their collective minds what to do next he moved both her feet gently off his lap and stood up. As lovely as all this was, she was beginning to wonder if he'd lied about Floosie, or his wife, or if there could even be someone else in the picture somewhere, someone she knew nothing about.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you"

"You didn't, at least I don't think you did" She stretched and produced what she hoped was a convincing yawn, one that said she'd only just woken up "What time is it?"

He turned off the television and checked his watch as she watched him, waiting and willing him to do something, to say something, surely to God he was going to kiss her soon or something wasn't he?

"It's nearly seven, I hadn't got the heart to wake you before, you've been asleep for over three hours and you haven't moved once so I began to wonder if you'd stopped breathing ….. I don't know about you but I'm bloody starving, shall we go to the pub, get something to eat?"

"I'll need to sort meself a bit, change me shirt 'n that if we're going out"

To her relief the stiffness and aches and pains, the result of her marathon behind the wheel of the hire car had gone. She had been so tense, so terrified of making a mistake, of crashing it, because the one thing she was sure about was that no credit card company was ever going to let her borrow enough of their money to pay that sort of bill. Now she'd relaxed she could feel a little thrill of achievement that she'd made it, and without even scratching the poxy thing and even her headache had gone now. But she could almost taste the disappointment as she looked in the mirror, she didn't look that bad, not as bad as she'd thought anyhow, nothing that a bit of slap, a hairbrush and a clean shirt wouldn't fix, so what the hell was wrong?

-OG-

The local pub was Friday night packed, and there were a number of people in there who knew Charles by name, so there was a lot of banter and jokey insults and welcome home's flying about as he introduced her to everyone as ' _ **a**_ _friend_ ', not as his ' _girlfriend',_ which she supposed was fair enough, but not even as _'_ _ **his**_ friend', nor as plain Molly so as they could make up their own minds, oh no, she was apparently just ' _ **a**_ _friend'._ Molly decided there and then to do what she'd always done since she was a young teenager and had got pissy about something and that was to drink enough to take the edge off the disappointment, enough so that she would stop caring about any of it.

"Come on, let's go home"

They'd eaten jacket potatoes with beans, microwaved and pretty marginal even for pub food, but she couldn't remember the last time that she'd sat in a pub with some bloke and laughed until she'd nearly wet herself, or watched the bloke she was with do very much the same thing. Every once in a while he'd look across at her and silently ask whether she was alright and would then wink at her, so that for the couple of hours that they were in the pub with hordes of locals out for their Friday night piss-up Molly felt totally cared for, as though it really mattered to him that she was okay.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been that happy in a pub and it wasn't until she got outside that she realised just how plastered she was. Alright, her teeth had gone numb earlier, a sure sign that she'd had enough and that she should really stop drinking, which she hadn't, so she was now in a lovely mellow, toasty drunken state when all the negative stuff she'd been feeling had vanished and she could tell herself that none of it mattered anyhow because relationships shouldn't be such hard work. She walked along quite happily next to him, clutching onto him occasionally when she stumbled and shooting glances up at his face every now and then while she chattered nineteen to the dozen about God knows what, she had no idea what she was talking about, and she could see that he wasn't quite sober either as he smiled down at her and never once asked what the hell she was on about.

They'd climbed the stairs side by side, and he managed all the locks on the front door the first time he tried, so that she pretended to applaud and told him about her struggle when she'd arrived here, making him put his head back and roar with laughter.

"Sshh, you'll have Flossie out here in a minute"

"Don't worry I'll protect you, and I thought her name was Floosie"

"Floosie, Flossie what bleeding difference does it make? The important thing is who's gonna protect you?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: I'm really pleased that so many of you enjoyed their reunion and could see it the way I saw it in my head. One the things I try very hard to do is to paint a picture of what I am seeing in my imagination and it's nice when you review to tell me that I managed to do that, so thanks.**_


	12. Chapter 12

"Molly?" He sounded a bit wary, as though he wasn't sure how to go on "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Course, why? Didn't you?"

He nodded then smiled at her before he went on "I wanted us to do something normal, you know, go to the pub, have a laugh, to make a change from being together in a bloody shit hole, anyway"

"Are we together?"

He didn't answer immediately, just walked across the polished floor and opened the French windows onto the little wrought iron balcony, it was very stuffy in the room, then turned to look at her where she was still standing just inside the door.

"Come and sit down for a bit" He sat on the sofa and patted the seat next to him, still watching her where she was standing without moving "We really need to talk, although I'm not altogether sure that this is the right time, I might just be a tiny bit pissed, it's been a long time since I had a drink"

"Or six"

"What?"

"I think you might possibly have had more than one drink" She giggled, she could hear that her speech was a bit slurred even to her own ears as she moved over and sat by him, leaving at least a decorous foot of sofa cushion between them "I think you might be nearly as pissed as I am" She took a deep breath in and looked at him "So, Rambo, can you tell me what this is all about cos you're bleeding scaring me now?"

"Don't call me that"

It almost sounded as if he was remonstrating out of habit, as though his mind was somewhere else as if he wasn't paying attention to what she'd said, more concentrating on what he was going to tell her.

"Sorry, but what the fuck is this all about? I thought …. well, I think you know what I thought, but now I don't know about anything"

She moved her face away slightly as he put his hand up to cup her cheek, stroking across her cheekbone with his thumb, and shaking his head as she went on "I thought we had something, you and me, you know, you sent me them flowers, said you missed me, well, that you was lonely without me which is the same bloody thing, and I did all this …... stupid shit …, me best friend will likely be in jail for the rest of her bleeding life, I had to be nice to some arsehole who mostly wanted to get in me knickers so I could swap days off, and then I drove that pissing car for about a week to come and get you"

She knew her tongue was running away with her and that she was now gabbling as she struggled to be coherent and to stop the alcohol induced tears that were threatening to put in an appearance at any second.

"I know it was all me own bleeding idea, that you didn't ask me to do none of it, and you wasn't expecting me, but you were pleased to see me, I know you were, and I really don't get it that now you're behaving like you're me bloody dad or summat and you're not that old and I don't need another dad thanks, I've got one crappy one, already"

" **B** elieve me I do _not_ want to be your dad, that is the very last thing I want, and of course I was pleased to see you, what you did today was ….. bloody amazing, the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me, but I want this to be a proper relationship. I want us to go out together, to do stuff, maybe even go to a bloody car boot sale if that's what you want, well, if I must" He lifted his head and gave a short laugh to show he was joking, then looked at her sideways "I want to have fun with you, but there's something we need to talk about, something I haven't told you and I don't want you … us …. to do anything that you'll look back on and regret, you know, that you'll be sorry about afterwards"

"Did you lie to me about you getting a divorce?"

"Of course not"

"Well, what about Floosie? Did you lie about her, or is there someone else out there somewhere?"

"No, why would you even think that? Of course I didn't lie about her, and no, there is definitely no-one else"

"Then, can we talk about whatever it is tomorrow or summat? Cos right now I think me brains are falling out of me head; it's just possible I might have had one or two more drinks than is good for me"

She suddenly desperately didn't want him to tell her whatever it was he wanted to tell her, she wanted to know, at least she thought she did, but she didn't want them to have to talk about it now and spoil the happy bubble he'd just finished creating for her.

"Only one or two drinks?"

"Who's counting?"

"The last thing I want is for you to think that I didn't …. "He stopped speaking and stared down at his feet, then shook his head and lifted it slightly to look at her sideways again, a small frown on his face "You know about Rebecca, you know that I was married to her, but what you don't know is that we, Rebecca and I, we have a little boy, Sam, he's six and I wanted to tell you about him before, but then events got in the way and …" He shrugged but he still had the little frown on his face.

"Is that it?"

"Not quite, let me finish, I love him, he is always going to be a major part of my life, but now there is a bloody good chance that he will be coming to live with me. Rebecca is pregnant" He saw the look of horror that briefly passed over her face "No, it's not mine, its nothing to do with me" he looked at her again and tried to gauge what she was feeling, but her face was a mask, blank, all emotion hidden "As soon as the divorce is final she's getting re-married and going off to live in Canada, but Sammie stays here, he leaves over my dead body" He had steel in his voice as he looked at her full in the face for the first time, then snorted a short laugh "And the other thing is, I'm sorry but I'm always going to be a soldier, well at least until I'm too old and they pension me off"

"Well, no-one's perfect"

"You are, perfect, I mean"

"No, I'm not, I'm really not, I don't do perfect" She laughed then thought for a minute and looked at him speculatively, wondering whether he was trying to tell her that he was partly looking for someone who would be good as a sort of child minder or something which would probably rule her out, she was nowhere near posh enough "Charles, how you going to look after a kid if you're in the army? I mean, what happens when you're sent off somewhere?"

"Sam will go to boarding school like I did and then my parents will do the holidays if I'm not around"

"Poor little sod" She grimaced then looked round the room "Where's all your stuff? Your photos and that, I'd like to see what he looks like"

"In storage, I'll go and get it tomorrow" He opened his wallet and took out the head and shoulders school photo of Sam that he carried with him everywhere "Here, this is Scamp"

"He looks just like you" Molly looked at the photograph closely, smiled, then ran a finger across the little boy's face and handed it back, she wasn't sure what he was expecting her to say "He's lovely"

"I think so" He laughed as relief flooded his system, he didn't know why he'd been so worried about telling her about Sam, maybe because of what she'd said about her American lover and the little boy he'd never acknowledged and with Sam the situation was complicated.

"Charles?"

"Hmmm?" He ran his tongue across his bottom lip, and then caught it between his teeth; his eyes were very soft as he looked at her, the pupils huge and dark. A mixture of alcohol, adrenalin and a massive surge of relief that he hadn't got someone else, she'd seriously begun to worry that it was a possibility, took over "Can I have a bath now please?"

"Of course you can" He put up his hand and smoothed her hair back from her forehead then laughed as he got up from the sofa and put out his hand to haul her to her feet "I'll make some tea"

-OG-

She'd forgotten how much she liked the smell of the Tesco bubble bath that she'd left behind in the bathroom when she'd gone back to Turkey, there was very little call for scented bath foam in a refugee camp where there wasn't even a bathtub for miles and anyhow you couldn't take bottles of liquid on planes these days. She poured a bit under the running tap, followed by another huge dollop so that the softened and scented water felt like absolute bliss as she swished it about with her hand filling the bath with bubbles. In spite of all the anaesthetic she'd drunk she could still feel the tight little knots of tension and tiredness in her shoulders which only began to relent as she lowered herself bit by bit into the slightly too hot water so that eventually just her chin was above the bubbles and strands of hair that were escaping from her top knot were floating around her shoulders.

She took a deep breath and admitted that Charles had probably been right earlier, that given half a chance she would happily drift off to sleep, although it was very unlikely that she would drown, she wasn't sure it was even possible to drown in a bubble bath, unless you were six or ninety six, or more pissed than she was.

"Molly, are you still alive in there?"

She lay in the bubbles and tried to weigh up whether to answer or whether he would come in and check for himself if she kept quiet long enough, then reluctantly shouted back that she was fine.

"Do you want a cup of tea or I've opened some wine if you'd prefer?"

"Tea please"

"Do you want it in there or are you thinking of getting out anytime tonight?"

"Nag, nag, nag, God, you never let up do you? I'll have it in here please" That little demon that now seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her head decided to disconnect the brakes between her brain and her mouth and spoke for her as she giggled "You'll probably be much safer if I have tea"

"Wine it is then"

There was absolutely no mistaking what he'd just said or the very long pause before he'd said it, so he'd definitely said what he'd meant to say. She took a deep breath then told him that he could come in, that she was decent, which was, in fact, true, she had been so generous with the bath stuff that the bubbles were actually spilling over the top and sides of the tub onto the floor. He opened the door very slowly and peered round it cautiously, almost as if he thought she was lying and was in fact standing stark naked in the middle of the bathroom getting ready to cry 'rape'. He had a single large glass of wine in his hand, a glass that he put down carefully on the side of the bath, then raised his eyebrows and finally looked at her.

"Where's yours?"

"In the kitchen, I'll share yours"

He perched himself on the tiled edge of the bath getting a wet bum from the overspill of bath foam, they were now looking at each other the way that they had when they'd first met up at the airport, which seemed to Molly to be about a year ago, but was actually only that morning. He took a large swig of the wine, never taking his eyes from hers, then threw his head back and laughed as she very cautiously put one arm out of the bubbles to take the glass from him but couldn't quite make it. She would need to sit up to do that, something which, for all sorts of reasons, was difficult.

"Here" He held the glass up to her lips so that she could take a sip "So tell me Miss Dawes, how much of this do you have to drink before you get dangerous?"

"Well, I've had the odd glass or three already tonight" She looked at him over the rim of the glass, eyes sparkling with mischief, reminding him of all the times she'd looked at him like that over a plastic beaker of tea in the camp "But that was vodka so it don't really count, it might take a little bit more than one sip though"

"Better have some more then, here" He held the glass up to her lips as they took alternate sips until the glass was almost empty when he took it and finished it with a gulp.

"I'll get the bottle"

The bottle was completely empty when she started to think about getting out of the bath, the water was now decidedly cool and the bubbles were disappearing fast as he trailed his hand through the water and then swished it backwards and forwards without saying a word, he just looked at her face steadily while he did it and it wasn't clear to her whether he was dispersing her modesty shield or trying to improve it for her.

"I think I'd best get out, this water's getting cold and I'm starting to look like a prune"

"Come on then" He picked up one of the large, soft and very white towels from the rail, and Molly laughed to herself, all the towels in his world would be soft and white like this one, not grey and hard from being dried on a radiator like they would be at home, then held it out to wrap round her "I'm not looking" He was as good as his word, turning his head away and swallowing hard as he said it.

She didn't wait for anything else, just pulled the plug and levered herself up out of the water and into the warm towel which he wrapped around her as she stood in the tub, for the first time ever they were almost the same height so she wrapped her arms round his neck and he leaned forward to kiss her briefly on the lips as she gazed into his eyes, waiting and willing him to kiss her properly.

He tucked the towel round her then lifted her out of the bath and let her slide down his body until she was standing in the gap between his feet. He did nothing for a moment or two, his arms now round her waist and her fingers entwined in the curls at the back of his neck. He just looked at her steadily, then leaned forward and pecked her gently on the corner of her mouth, not even fully on her lips as she'd expected, as she stood and stared at him. She put a couple of fingers against her face where he'd kissed her and shook her head.

"Is that it?"

"Molly, you need to be absolutely sure about this, you've had a hell of a lot to drink, and so have I and I really don't want you to be sorry about anything"

"What do you mean am I sure? Course I'm bloody sure, I'm beginning to think it's you what isn't, but if that's what it is, you need to say"

He pulled her towards him so that there was no longer any space between them then raised his eyebrows and looked at her "Listen to me, that's not what this is about at all, it's just that I'm a hell of a lot older than you and we're both pissed, so I'm a bit worried …" He took a deep breath "I don't want to fuck things up, I don't want everything to go to shit because I rushed you into something" He leaned over and kissed her gently, a soft kiss on her mouth, a kiss that made them both take a sharp intake of breath, and made Molly's head spin from the mixture of adrenalin and alcohol together with a piercing bolt of desire in the pit of her stomach.

"You're not rushing me, but you know what? Floosie will be walking in through that door any second" Molly tried to joke as she tightened her grip in the hair on the back of his head and leaned against him, feeling his body's immediate response "Bit surprised she hasn't been in already actually"

"I'll shoot her if she does"

His voice was low and gruff as he bent his head and kissed her, gently at first, and then with increasing passion as he swept her up in his arms, something he'd done many times before in his dreams, and carried her through to the bedroom, the towel falling on the floor as they went.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: See you on Monday for Chapter 13, I know some people were very impatient for them to get some lip action, but they'd actually only been together for a few hours so I didn't want to make it so they hopped into bed as virtual strangers (not that any of us would, would we? Perish the thought) anyway I hope you enjoyed this, please review for me.**_


	13. Chapter 13

There was a bit of her that wanted to warn him that he shouldn't expect too much, that she might well turn out to be a bit of a disappointment , but as he kept on kissing her she forgot all about what she'd been going to say, even if she could have found the right words which was unlikely. In fact she forgot about just about everything except the dark-haired brown-eyed man who was holding her, the man she'd had daydreams about for months, well actually ever since the last time she'd been in this bed, the man who was at that moment making her feel like she was the only person in the world that mattered.

Molly had always thought that sex was something that everyone else got right but that she'd somehow missed out on reading some vital instructions somewhere which would have told her all about the right way to do stuff, the right moves 'n that, or maybe it was that she had some essential bit of her brain missing, the bit that controlled that part of her. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy sex, she did, but not the way everyone else talked about enjoying it, and although she'd sometimes got close to being there, especially with Bryan, her American soldier, having a near miss was as close as it got, it never actually happened. The feelings, the sensations that she could get when she was on her own would start to build so that she'd think _, yeah finally,_ and then he'd change what he was doing a bit or move slightly or something and the feelings would just go away, vanish, and she'd be left with the choice of either faking it because that was easier than explaining, or of being with someone who wanted to keep on and on and on pulling her about and trying until she wanted to scream.

She did enjoy the closeness, the feeling of someone's arms round her holding her tight making her feel secure and safe, but too often her mind would start to wander so that she'd begin to worry more about when was the last time she'd shaved her legs and did they need doing or whether her bum looked big than anything else and hard as she tried not to, in the past she couldn't help the feeling that sex was just the ultimately messy pastime.

Afterwards it didn't seem important that sex was still a sticky and messy pastime, she didn't give a damn anymore as she lay contented and cuddled up in the crook of his arm and he twiddled with a lock of her hair, turning it into a tight ringlet.

"You know, I think you might just be me most favourite person in the whole world right now"

"Why's that exactly, Miss Dawes?" He was whispering as he let go of the ringlet and stroked her hair back from her forehead, smiling into her eyes as he tucked the loose strands of damp hair behind her ears, damp not only from her hot bath but from the sheen of perspiration that had been over her face and body.

"I think you already know" She giggled, slightly embarrassed "And stop fishing for compliments else I'm gonna ask you how you got to be that good"

"Can't think what you're talking about, I'll tell you what, though, I've got a fair few years on you, and I don't _think,_ I _know_ that you are _most definitely_ my favourite person in the world"

"Will you stop bleeding going on about you being old else I'll start thinking that you're right, you are old" She craned her neck and kissed the bit of his shoulder she could reach without shifting her position "And you're not"

"Maybe not but I'm still a lot older than you" He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose "And I reckon you're just trying to get me to sleep in the damp patch, aren't you?"

"Oh good, you offering?"

"Of course I am, I'm a gentleman"

"You're a prannet"

"I'm not even going to ask"

He was drowsy, a lot of alcohol when he'd had none for months, the weariness of a long and pretty eventful day, a long journey after the tension of guard duty the night before combined with the intense feelings of happiness and contentment that comes from having sex with someone who really matters to you, was making it very difficult for him to keep his eyes open, to stay awake, but he didn't want to drop off just yet, he wanted to look at her as she curled up asleep against him. The strands of hair that had escaped from her messy topknot in the bath were curling tightly round her face which was faintly flushed, dark eyelashes fanned on pink cheeks with her mouth slightly open as she breathed quietly and he tried to ignore the little voice in his head that kept pointing out how she looked even younger asleep.

The amount of booze he'd shipped had worried him a lot after they'd come home from the pub and things had started up between them, especially when they were still standing together in the bathroom and he'd wanted more than anything in the world to reach out and touch her but hadn't, because he'd wondered whether it would actually be better to stick to his guns and for them to wait out. He was desperate not to disappoint her, or to let himself down for that matter, but the moment when she'd clung to him with her arms and her legs and every other bit of her body as the waves of pleasure had flooded through her meant that all his dreams paled into insignificance compared to the reality of his own pleasure that had very quickly followed.

-OG-

"Nah can't, don't make me" She whimpered "I'm dying, can't open me eyes until you shut them bleeding curtains"

"I'll close them, here I've made you some tea, two sugars, don't let it get cold"

"I need wa'er …. and Nurofen … and wa'er" She was still whimpering.

"Water I can do, but not Nurofen"

"In me bag, 'n how come I'm bleeding dying here and you're so up and cheerful? It's not fair"

"Sorry"

He rifled through her bag and found the pain killers then tilted her head up and held the glass of water to her lips as she tried to gulp it down without opening her eyes or sitting up, so that she ended up with water down her neck and soaking into the pillow but she swore blind that she couldn't sit up because it would put the final nail in her coffin and that all she wanted to do was stay in bed for the rest of her life, preferably with the curtains shut. She wouldn't let him kiss her or stretch out next to her on the bed, because something furry and vile had crawled in her mouth and died during the night and was now busy killing off the rest of her.

-OG-

"Come on, where is it?"

"Where's what? I have got no idea what you're looking for"

Two large Waitrose 'Bags for Life' sat on the kitchen counter as Molly rooted through them looking for something without asking him which bag to look in.

"I'm looking for the bleeding chocolate of course"

She looked up at him; her green eyes had now recovered some of their normal sparkle so he assumed that the worst of her hangover had subsided while he was out getting essentials and retrieving his belongings from storage.

"I didn't get any, I only got the essential stuff, sorry"

"Chocolate _is_ a bleeding essential when you've got a hangover, I can't believe you don't know that"

"I'm sorry I didn't know" He was struggling not to laugh at the expression on her face "I'll go and get you some, or come on, you come with me. Let's go and get some fresh air, it might do your headache good"

"No it won't, I'm bleeding suffering here, I can't go out, 'n I can't believe you didn't know that chocolate cures everything, where the hell have you been up till now?"

He ignored what he supposed was a rhetorical question and began to laugh at the tone of her voice and the way she put her head down on her folded arms on the breakfast counter, sighing loudly, for all the world as if she was about to roll over and die, at the same time as peeping at him from under her eyelashes and smirking slightly now it looked as though she might just possibly get her own way.

"Really? Well that's the first time I've ever heard it"

"It's true, honestly, and I'll make it worth your while"

"I thought you were suffering" He laughed and leaned over to kiss the top of her head where it was still resting on her folded arms "Won't be long, don't go anywhere"

"Can't, I told you, I'm ill" Molly put on the most martyred voice she could manage "But you don't have to if you don't want, I'm sure I'll feel better eventually, even without chocolate"

"I'm sure you will" He bent over and kissed her again "But here's a little tip, if you want me to believe you when you tell me stuff, you need to stop smirking" He was laughing again as he checked his pockets for his wallet and door keys then stopped and looked back at her as he started walking towards the door "You know I'm only doing this because I love you, don't you?"

-OG-

They didn't go out on the Saturday evening, they talked about going to bed early to catch up on some of the sleep they'd missed the night before, and had then curled up together on the sofa yawning in unison as Charles swigged beer out of the bottle and Molly stuck to water, swearing blind that it was all she ever drank anyway, that she never, ever touched a drop of anything else. They'd eaten a take away Chinese and bickered slightly about who was better at eating with chopsticks while they pretended to watch some foreign film on television. Charles did anyway while Molly got the giggles; she kept insisting that whoever was doing the subtitles was on crack because the words on the screen had nothing to do with the action, such as it was.

After a while she got so bored with the whole thing that she started up a running commentary of her own, constantly asking questions and then supplying her own dialogue, a commentary that was accompanied by a lot of giggling as Charles did his best to shut her up by putting his hand over her mouth to muffle her. He was, in the end, reduced to snorts and bursts of laughter as she kept kissing his palm and then lifting his hand off her mouth and kissing each finger, one by one, further distracting him by trying to climb into his lap. In the end of course, despite him pretending to be absorbed by the film, they'd ended up ripping each other's clothes off and having frantic sex on one of the rugs on the living room floor, but only after she'd insisted that he had to go and put the lock down on the front door in case Floosie decided that it was time to pay them a visit.

-OG-

Sunday morning had started in exactly the same way Saturday evening ended, only this time in bed, so that Molly leaving to return to Italy just after lunch had been difficult. Both of them had acted as though it wasn't a big deal, just the way things were, but they'd clung together when the moment had arrived they couldn't put off any longer, when the time had come for him to go with her to the garages to get in the car. He'd wanted to go to Gatwick with her to see her off, but she had to return the hire car so he couldn't drive her, and if he went with her in it he'd have difficulty getting back. Their reluctance to part meant that by the time she got to the terminal she'd have to go and check-in almost immediately, so in the end he'd accepted the inevitable, agreed that it would be totally impractical and stayed at home, albeit very reluctantly.

-OG-

The weekend after next had seemed a very long time away to Charles as he'd wandered around the flat after she'd left, a flat that felt incredibly quiet and empty as he folded a towel back on the rail, straightened the duvet and thought about the conversation he'd promised to have with Flora. If Molly was right it was bound to be a bit tricky, so he intended to get it over with as soon as possible, to just ask for his spare key and say he needed it for his girlfriend, although he still wasn't convinced that she wasn't winding him up. He wouldn't be seeing her the following weekend, she had to cover someone else's shift, someone she'd swapped with, but it would have been a tricky juggle even without that.

He was spending it with Sam at his parents' house in Bath, he could no longer pick him up from Rebecca's, and any alterations to the arrangements would have required very delicate negotiations, something he was pretty sure wouldn't go his way without there being some sort of pay-off, especially if she knew why he wanted to change things. Any pretence of civilised co-operation between them had sunk without trace when he'd found out about Canada and her plans for Sam. He no longer cared about her leaving him, he didn't even care that she was pregnant by some other man, a Canadian businessman that she'd known for all of five minutes, if that, but she wasn't taking Sam with her, that was going to happen over his dead body.

Their relationship had always been tetchy, long periods of separation because of deployment, with intense reunions that had never quite matched up to her expectations, the resentments that had built and festered over their months apart had always spilled over within days of him being home, and it wasn't helped that both of them were champions at sulking. Charles had always known that they shouldn't have got married, that they would never have lasted long enough to get that as far if she hadn't got pregnant with Sam, and despite their best efforts to make it work, by the time Sam was born they were already poles apart.

He'd been sad and, he supposed, guilty about his failings as a husband and, to a degree, as a dad when he'd been deployed to Turkey, but Turkey had changed everything for him. Not only meeting Molly, he hadn't got a clue where that was going to lead but it had certainly turned his life on its head, but the realisation that he and Rebecca weren't victims of ill will from Lady Luck, they were actually the lucky ones, their child was alive and healthy and happy and could live at home and go to school and play with his little friends without being afraid.

-OG-

"He said he loves me, but I think he was just messing, you know, just playing about"

"Well maybe, but maybe he means it, it sounds kinda nice if you ask me"

"I'm not bleeding asking you, am I? It's just one of them things people say innit? It's just a load of bullshit what they come out with when they wanna shag someone or if they're already at it and they don't wanna get their marching orders" She stopped and thought for a moment "And people use it as an excuse to fuck you over"

Knowing that Grace was likely to be at home, she was highly unlikely to have a hot date on a Sunday evening and if she had she'd have texted immediately, she'd skyped to keep her promise to fill the other girl in on the weekend. She was desperate to carry out some sort of post mortem with a mate, to talk about him out loud, although only selected highlights because there were a lot of details she wanted to hug to herself.

"Didn't it feel a bit odd, you know, strange? I know he looks pretty awesome, very sexy, but the last time you saw him he said that all the shit that went down out there was somehow your fault"

"Nah, I think he can be a bit of a moody so and so sometimes, but then so can I, in a lot of ways he's just as fucked up as I am, just better at hiding it that's all, so we're sorta the same, anyhow, he never said it were my fault, that were just me being a bit, whatdya call it, paranoid, I were upset at the time …" She paused then grinned at the screen "and I like him Gracie, I really do"

"Sounds like it might be a bit more than that"

"Nah" She shook her head emphatically "No way"

"Are you sure?"

"Course I am, I'm not a falling in love sort of girl, you know that, well maybe I was once upon a time, but that was then and this is now, innit?"

"Who said anything about falling in love? I was talking more about lust actually" Grace giggled and raised her eyebrows, she knew there was no point in trying to talk Molly round, she'd worked with her long enough to know just how obstinate she could be and the other girl had confided in her one night in Turkey about how hurt she'd been by the actions of one of Grace's own countrymen "What's he like in bed?"

"I'm not telling you, am I? Nosy mare" Molly sniggered then added "Bloody amazing actually, pretty awesome"

"Hey, come on, you promised details remember and it's not as though I have a love life, is it? And it's not like I'll ever have one either, not living with my mom, no-one is ever going to be good enough for her little princess"

"We're not talking about her little princess though, are we? We're talking about you" Molly paused and giggled, biting her bottom lip "Oh sorry, that is you, innit?"

"Thanks! So not funny" Grace giggled "What I need is someone like your soldier to come over here and show her that there are nice blokes about, so when can I borrow him?"

"Never, you can keep your bleeding eyes off of him and your hands for that matter …. just tell your mother to butt out and then go and find some bloke you can put out of his misery"

"Wouldn't hurt you to share"

"Yeah, it would"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Hope everyone had a good weekend as Molly and CJ have had, well at least in my parallel universe. Now they have to move on and adjust to a new life, although they can't be together the way they would both like to be … and are both reluctant to admit to. So new arrangements have to be made, arrangements that don't always go the way you want them to … Please review for me.**_


	14. Chapter 14

Bringing his trip to Italy forward by a few days to the middle of the week came as a result of something his mother said during his weekend with Sam. He'd mentioned Molly's name in passing, thoughts of her kept popping into his brain so that her name slipped out, but he'd totally forgotten about his mother's radar. She'd immediately honed in on the fact that he was hiding something and had demanded to know who she was, where they'd met and all about her, until Charles had got very irritated and accused her of trying to get him neatly packaged up and paired off again before the ink was even dry on his divorce papers, of wanting his love life tied up with red ribbons, words which had made him smirk as he remembered a pack of Rosabaya on a camp bed. His mother was very contrite, had kept apologising profusely for her big mouth then said that she only wanted him to be happy so she couldn't pretend to be sorry that he was moving on.

If anything, Molly was even happier about his change of plans than he was, or than his mother would have been if she'd known anything about them. She was falling over her words, almost gabbling with excitement when he'd phoned to ask if it would be okay if he came out a couple of days earlier than they'd planned. She'd already explained that he couldn't stay with her at her digs, that the Signor 'a was elderly, catholic and very proper so would have had a blue bleeding fit at the idea, and anyhow she only had a small single bed, but she'd found him a hotel and would see if she could change the booking, or would find him another one, even though the island was stuffed full of holidaymakers and bloody journalists and sodding film crews, and that she would meet him at the airport, and, most satisfying of all to his ears, that she couldn't wait to see him.

He hadn't appreciated until he was almost there just what a long journey it was, let alone how expensive, so he was now worried about how the hell Molly had come up with the money to go backwards and forwards the way she had as well as hiring a car, even at a weekend rate, and staying at a Travelodge. Even though he had no idea what she earned he was pretty sure that aid workers weren't on huge salaries, so he wanted to pay for it or at least for some of it if she wouldn't let him pay for it all, but he couldn't think how to broach the subject with her because he was also pretty sure that she'd kneecap him if he tried to give her money.

The island was beautiful from the air, glorious sandy beaches and rocky coves and what looked like a headland, turquoise sea and green everywhere away from the coastal strip, it was very small so he could well understand the attraction of the place to holidaymakers and also the qualms of the locals at the thousands of migrants arriving day after day.

Her face told him everything as he caught sight of her waiting, she was standing in the warm evening sunshine wearing the same green top she'd been wearing the last time she'd met him at an airport and her long shiny hair was tied back in a plait the way he remembered as she hung over the top of the barrier waving frantically with both hands desperately trying to attract his attention. Her face was alight with laughter and happiness so that he broke into a run and swept her off her feet in a huge hug spinning her round, the way he'd wanted to do so badly when he'd first seen her at Brize Norton.

-OG-

"Where am I staying?"

His voice was so husky it was almost a whisper, he'd stopped kissing her just long enough to ask, because his body was giving him increasingly urgent messages to either stop what he was doing immediately or go somewhere with a bit of privacy, and the sooner the better. Molly definitely wasn't helping matters as she wound her fingers in his hair, pulling his head down towards hers and pressing her body against him, giggling slightly when he groaned.

"Come on before we get bloody arrested"

"We'll have to find a taxi, the hotel's not on the beach cos all them hotels is stuffed full of wankers on expenses but this one's okay, it belongs to one of Signor a's relatives or someone she knows anyhow, I could be wrong about it being a relation cos I don't speak Italian so I haven't got a bloody scoobie what she's on about most of the time"

"What, you're not learning to speak Italian? You learned Arabic"

"Yeah, and that was a bleeding waste of time wasn't it? I've forgotten it all now; anyhow I might not be here that long"

"Why, where are you going?"

"Nothing's definite yet, so…." She shrugged "But it'll most likely be Greece, if I go anywhere at all"

He felt an immediate rush of relief, for a moment he'd been afraid that she was going to say she was off to Turkey again or somewhere even more worrying and further away, like Eritrea, but Greece wasn't that bad, it might even be easier to travel backwards and forwards from there.

The room was small and white and spotlessly clean, with a tiny balcony and a small, white and spotlessly clean bathroom on the first floor of the family run hotel which was full of the smiling and welcoming faces of people who seemed to be desperately keen to feed them or give them drinks at one of the tables under the pergola in the garden, a pergola which had a vine growing over it so it would be cool and shady when the weather got roasting hot later in the Summer. There was no pool, but the garden was green and lush looking with banks of flowering shrubs and he could see the sea in the distance, anyway he really only wanted to be alone with Molly, so he didn't give a shit about the lack of a pool and only accepted the drinks that were being pressed on them in order to be polite.

He knew that he had a faintly pleading expression on his face, and that he was making what Molly called his puppy dog eyes as he indicated the stairs with his head and his eyes, trying with all his might to give her the message that he was desperate for them to just say goodnight and go to his room. As pleasant as the proprietor and his English speaking wife were and in spite of the fact that they were doing their absolute utmost to make him feel welcome, he just couldn't wait to get away to be alone with her, it was ten days since he'd seen her and at that moment it felt like a lifetime.

-OG-

She ran her hand under the button band of his shirt and across his chest putting it over where his heart was beating frantically then raised herself up on tiptoes to reach as she kissed the corner of his mouth so that he threw his head back then lifted her off her feet and carried her over to the pristine white bed, throwing the duvet on the floor out of the way as he lowered her onto the sheet, both of them still fully dressed.

"Missed me have you?" Her voice had started as little more than a whisper as he took his time undressing her, but she began to giggle as he abandoned his slow seduction technique and started to pull her clothes off, muttering when he had trouble undoing the clasp on her bra.

"Like you wouldn't believe"

"I think I might be getting some sort of clue here"

"Have you missed me?"

"Dunno, you might need to remind me a bit about what it is I'm s'posed to have been missing then I'll let you know"

"One of these days, Miss Dawes, you might find me taking you seriously and believing you when you say something like that"

"Nah you won't, you know you love me really"

The mood between them changed abruptly as he bent his head and starting kissing her, muttering "Yup I know I do" against her lips as they moved from teasing to a desperate and frenzied need to be closer. She put her hand down and stroked him then started to undo the buttons on his jeans, fumbling slightly as he went from hard to rigid, and she felt and heard his breathing get ragged as he moved his hips pressing himself harder against her hand.

Afterwards they showered together then lay side by side on the bed, still a bit damp but sated, and he put his arm round and pulled her closer into his side stroking her hair. As he lay there, relaxed and sleepy and unbelievably happy, he looked up at the ceiling and listened to the noises outside in the night then turned his head slightly to look at her.

"You are going to stay with me, aren't you?"

"What, you thought I might creep off in a bit and do some walk of shame or some'ing did you?"

"No of course not, but I thought you might not want to stay, that you might be worried about upsetting your Signor' a or something and you've got no stuff with you"

"She's me landlady, numpty, I live in her house, she's not me bleeding mother" She stroked the side of his face and laughed "I've got me toothbrush 'n me pills in me bag, Oh and some clean knickers, I'm not slutty you know"

"Sorry, and don't say things like that, they're not funny, I never thought you were for a minute"

He pulled her closer into his arms then spooned into her back as she turned over and pulled the duvet up from the floor, tucking it round them. Molly was sleepy, it had been a very long and a very busy day and she'd had this bubble of excitement fermenting away in her stomach all the time she'd been working, making it exceedingly difficult for her to concentrate on anything as she'd wished the hours away. Making love the way they had and the magic of the feeling when she came, something that had taken her from 'never, so why bother?' to 'when can we do it again?' had been followed by a lovely warm shower and she was now lying on crisp clean sheets with Charles' arm heavy across her, his warm breath stirring the fine baby hairs on the back of her neck and an overwhelming sense of drowsy contentment.

-OG-

"I'll give them a year, two if she gets herself knocked up"

"God, you're such a cynic" He gave a short laugh "They'll probably be deliriously happy ever after"

"Nah they won't, take it from me, that is never gonna happen, not in a million"

It was the Saturday evening of his stay and there was a wedding party going on in the hotel, as far as they could tell the bride was related to one of the staff, or maybe it was the bridegroom, they weren't sure, the proprietor's wife's English didn't run to complicated explanations, but in the usual hospitable way of his hosts they had, together with the other guests in the hotel, a middle-aged Danish couple, been invited to join in the celebrations in the garden. They were currently sitting at one of the tables under the pergola with a bottle of local red wine and Molly was quietly doing a hatchet job on the happy couple. She'd decided that the groom was a total git who should be going down on his hands and knees to kiss the floor and thank God that the bride was even giving him the time of day, let alone that she was going to shag him later on, but that the bride was suicidal because her mother, the shouty woman in the very nasty purple dress, was forcing her to marry him because she was shit scared her daughter was going to be on the shelf.

Charles had started off being faintly concerned at her cynicism but now couldn't stop laughing as she continued to dissect the rest of the wedding party, deciding that the groom's mother had a drink problem mainly because of who she was married to, and that his dad couldn't stand her and that the bride's father, who was a tiny little bloke and obviously terrified of the old trout in the purple frock, was most likely a perv who groped all the girls in his office. Charles wanted to ask her what she thought made 'happy ever after' a possibility for anyone, but for some reason he wasn't sure that he'd like her answer. They hadn't been together long, just a few weeks, although they'd known each other for a lot longer than that, and most of the time they'd been apart, but he felt he knew her well enough to know that she would be very sceptical indeed about any talk of love or marriage.

"So, will your mum be trying to force you to marry some git to get you off the shelf?"

"It wouldn't do her much bleeding good if she did, I stopped listening to her when I was about eight and realised that she'd chosen to marry a git like me Dad, that no-one had actually forced her, certainly not me Nan, she's got no bloody time for him at all" She giggled "Not only that, but Mum kept on having all them kids with him as well"

"That's a bit sad" He picked up her hand from where she was drawing patterns on the table top with her finger, but she pulled it away.

"Nah, its fine, don't worry about it"

-OG-

"Back to yelling tomorrow Rambo, bossing everyone about and getting pissy if they don't do what they're told"

"What like you, you mean?"

"I always do what I'm told"

"Oh good" He laughed as he grabbed her wrists and held her hands above her head, moving across so that he was almost lying on top of her although his weight wasn't actually on her "I wish that were true, it would certainly make life a lot easier, Oh and by the way, I keep telling you, I _never_ yell, I do _not_ boss people about or get _pissy_ , and most of all my name is _not_ Rambo"

"Alright, keep your bleeding hair on, I must be mixing you up with someone else, funny how I keep on doing that innit?"

"You'd better not" He still had her hands trapped above her head as he bent and kissed her, then scraped his teeth over his bottom lip "About your weekend off, can I ask you something without you getting all pissy with me?"

" _Me?_ I never get pissy with anyone, and yeah, what about it? I can't come home, not this time"

"You do get pissy, the first time we met you told me to fuck off, but never mind I forgive you, and I want to talk to you about coming home, about paying for the bloody travelling backwards and forwards"

"I never said that, I don't say things like that" She giggled "Anyhow, that's bleeding big of you, forgiving me, cos if I remember rightly it was you playing soldiers that pissed me off"

"Stop trying to change the subject, now, let's talk about how much it costs to come home and see me and how you can't keep on paying for it, unless you're loaded and keeping it a secret"

"I'm not the one what's loaded, that's you, on the other hand everyone's loaded compared to me, never mind, Mr Visa's got plenty"

"You can't keep putting it on a credit card and I'm not loaded" He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose "I want to see you, I want you to come home whenever you have time off, well if you want to that is, so you have to let me pay for it" He pulled his puppy dog face "It would make me happy"

"Are you really not loaded?" She looked up at him with a faked horrified expression on her face, then grinned "Not even a little bit?" adding as he shook his head "Oh shit"

"Yes, very funny, hilarious, and will you stop trying to change the subject"

"I'm not, I just thought that as you're minted and you keep on and on about being old 'n that, you could be me sugar daddy or some'ing"

"I'm going to put you over my bloody knee in a minute" He let go of her wrists and pulled her arms down and round his neck "Come on, I'll get a joint credit card and you can put the fares on it, how about that?"

"What?" She gave an incredulous laugh "We've been together for about five minutes and you're gonna trust me with your credit card? Are you bleeding nuts or summat?"

"Nope, I just want you to come home and see me every time you've got enough time off and you can't do that if you've got no money, so it's for me really, I'm just being selfish"

"Okay, if you put it like that I'll think about it"

"Not good enough"

"Alright, we'll do it your way; else you'll only nag me to death, won't you? Thank you" She moved her head so that she could kiss him "And I promise I won't go mad with it, even when I take it for a little trip to Dover Street"

"If you do that I really will put you over my knee" He kissed the tip of her nose again "Anyway it's me that should be saying thank you, come here"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Aahhh, the honeymoon period of any relationship ….. even a long-distance one. Hope you're still with me ….… and them …as Charles goes back to work and real life gets set to intrude.**_


	15. Chapter 15

It was early evening when she cleared customs at Gatwick and anxiously scanned the crowded terminal looking for the very tall dark haired man who was at that moment pushing his way past hordes of people who all seemed to be just milling about and getting in his way. His height was a bonus in these circumstances; she could usually see him head and shoulders above everyone else. It was no time since they were together in Lampedusa but it felt endless to both of them; Molly was horribly aware, even if she put it to the back of her mind, that at some point in the not too distant future they were going to have to get used to being apart, it looked extremely likely that she was going to be sent somewhere far flung sooner rather than later.

They didn't say a word when they found one another, just clung with their arms tightly wrapped round each other, until people started to 'tut' that they were standing in the way and began to push past, apparently everyone who had been aimlessly milling about getting under his feet were all of a sudden in some sort of tearing rush.

As far as Charles was concerned, Lampedusa was now a world away; his return to duty had been marked by his subjection to the barely veiled knowing smirks and nudges, together with so-called innocent questioning. As he'd expected Molly's unscheduled appearance at Brize had not gone unremarked by the under-fives, particularly by the self-appointed comedians of 2 section.

"Were all those girls okay after they got back home from Turkey, Boss? I mean, have you heard, did they go on to somewhere nice? Hope it wasn't anywhere manky like Turkey because that would worry people, you know all their friends and … whatever … wouldn't it?" Fingers smiled round at his mates, very pleased with himself.

He'd had his very best innocent expression pasted across his face as he'd asked the first of his set of leading questions, questions that Charles chose to answer with a simple smile, shrug and shake of his head, giving them nothing at all to work on, but knowing that he definitely hadn't heard the last of it yet.

"Was that that Molly, you know the one with the nice …. smile I saw you talking to at the airport? What is her name now? Oh yes, I remember, Miss Dawes isn't it?"

"Yes, I believe that is her name, now … Corporal" He turned to look at Easter who hastily wiped the smirk off his face "We need to look at some fitness drills I think, let's see who spent their leave in the pub and McDonalds, and maybe we'll start with you Fingers, I'm always glad to see such a keen and eager soldier"

"Did you have a good leave, Boss?" He wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"Excellent thank you, lovely, it's very kind of you to ask"

"You're welcome, did you go anywhere nice, do anything nice?"

"Yup, as I said, it was excellent, now Corporal, shall we get on and do some work?"

The smirking and thinly veiled curiosity rapidly disappeared as bodies which had done no exercise at all for over three weeks struggled to do squats, pull ups, press ups and bench presses to the Corporal's exacting standards interspersed with circuits of the gym hall as Charles stood and watched, pleased that he didn't have to join in. He could ease himself back in gently as he'd only got back from Italy very late the previous evening and was also more than a bit heavy eyed and sleep deprived after his short break.

The rest of the lads quickly decided that the torture they were undergoing was the boss dishing out retribution for Fingers' nosy piss taking, so it was his fault that they were now feeling as though they were going to die and consequently made it very plain that he should shut his trap immediately before things got any worse and they found themselves cleaning shitters…

-OG-

"How was work? Did any of them say anything to you, you know, about me turning up at the airport and meeting you like that?"

"They tried" He snorted a short laugh, their curiosity had seemed to vanish by the time Easter's exercise drill had finished "Funnily enough they seemed to lose interest after a while"

"What did you do to them?"

"Bullied them" He sniggered at her appalled expression "Don't worry about them, they'll get over it and I didn't give them latrine clean, I'm keeping that pleasure in hand"

They were in his car on their way back to Guildford, Molly had complained loudly as he'd put her bag in the back because she said that she hadn't believed him when he told her that he hadn't got a Ferrarri, she'd been convinced that he'd been joking, but had then promptly jumped up and down and hugged him when he promised he would get her added to his insurance so that she could drive his Discovery. She stopped and looked at the car for a moment, then smirked as she pointed out that she might need a step ladder to get in and out of it and if he was serious about putting her on his insurance, maybe he could think about swapping it for a low sports car.

Charles raised both his eyebrows, then chucked her under her chin and roared with laughter as he told her to stop pushing her bloody luck and when she offered to make it worth his while he said that he doubted she could possibly do enough to achieve that, but he couldn't wait for her to start giving it her best shot…...

"What here?" She pretended to look around the multi-storey car park as he slung an arm round her shoulders and guided her to the passenger side door, getting ready to help her up into the car.

"If you like"

-OG-

"Stop it, stop it, hang on a minute, I've got news, I've got some'ing I wanna tell you"

They'd arrived in the flat and he'd dumped her bag on the floor just inside the front door, turned round to lift her up and carry her through to the lounge while he nibbled the sensitive spot just below her ear, his intentions clear.

"Okay, okay, I'm listening" He still kept on nibbling and kissing her neck round to her chin, then moved up to start kissing the corner of her mouth.

"No, you're not" She put her hands against his shoulders and pushed him slightly away from her "Stop it, I wanna tell you"

"Sorry, go on I'm listening now"

"I've been promoted, been made team leader" Her face was lit up with a smile of pure delight "It's more money, well that's obvious innit? so I'll be able to pay off me debts a bit quicker, and I'm moving to Leros, that's in Greece, I thought it was Lesbos, but it's not, that's somewhere else entirely apparently, and then after I've been there for a bit I might be gonna go to Serbia where they're setting up some sort of assessment centre, but that's not definite yet"

"God, that's fucking awesome, I'm so proud of you" He swallowed his immediate horrified reaction of 'Oh shit, Serbia?' "You'll be bloody brilliant"

"You don't know that, I mean, I'm crapping meself about it, I don't know if I'll be able to boss people about or get pissy with them" She thought for a moment "And I don't think I want anyone to get pissy with me but I wanna see if I can do it, you know?"

"Of course you'll be able to do it, I just said, you'll be brilliant, and don't worry about people getting pissy with you, they won't, they'll all love you, everyone does" He hugged her "Do you want to go out to eat? We could phone round, find somewhere posh for me to take you out to dinner and celebrate" He looked at his watch"It's not too late"

"We could do that tomorrow couldn't we?"

"Well yes we can, if you like"

"Good, cos I think I'd rather go to bed, and then send out for a pizza or some'ing later"

"Are you tired? You should have said"

"Very funny" She ran her hands under his 'T' shirt and flattened them against his chest, stroking his muscles and loving the way his pupils got huge and dark as she let her fingers drift down the sides of his chest to the waistband of his jeans and then over the top of them towards his hip bones "I thought we might, I dunno, have a bit of a ….. rest"

"Oh good"

-OG-

Eating pizza in bed afterwards lead to them having to change the sheets and duvet cover; sticky hands, bits of tomato and crust crumbs combined with a damp patch meant that it was easier to change the whole thing than to ty and find a bit of the bed to lie on that wasn't uncomfortable with something sticky, or crumbs. Their lovemaking had been very slow and gentle to start with as if it was something they needed to store up in their memory banks. Molly's promotion was going to change things between them as Charles had known instantly that it must, Leros was fine, Greece was no worse than Italy to get to and get back from, but Serbia was something else entirely. It was too far away for them to see each other frequently, so the sex felt a bit as if it was something they needed to treasure because it was going to become a rarity.

"Did you ask Floosie for your key back?"

"No, I think she must be away, I haven't seen her and she hasn't been answering her door"

"Maybe she's avoiding you, she might be a bit cross with you about some'ing"

"Molly" He stroked her hair away from her face and bunched it at the back of her head with his hand "I don't actually give a shit whether she's cross or not, I couldn't care less one way or the other, I only care about you"

"Oh"

"Do you know how long it'll be before you hear about Serbia?"

"Nah" She looked at him and saw the fleeting expression on his face, an expression that he quickly masked behind his usual half smile "Why, what's wrong, what's the problem?"

"Nothing, it's just that Serbia is a bit of a long journey, so we need to make the most of the weekends we've got left, now, what do you want to do tomorrow?"

"How far is it to Serbia? I mean, I know it's a bit of a trek, but it's still in Europe, I know that much cos I know that some of the refugees walk there from Greece, so it can't be that far, so why are you so worried about how far it is?"

"It's about a 6 or 7 hour flight"

"Is it? Shit"

"Hey, come on don't look like that, it hasn't happened yet, so" Seeing the horrified expression on her face he made a rapid decision to attempt to change the subject "Have you thought about tomorrow?"

"Nag, nag, nag, you never bleeding stop do you? I haven't had a chance have I? What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know, I'm sure I'll think of something"

"Well, apart from that" She slapped him lightly then laughed "I was thinking I should maybe pop in and see me Mum, I've been home twice now and I haven't even told her, I can't keep on doing that and you could come with me I s'pose, I mean, I could take you, what do you think? I mean you don't have to, it's alright, you know what, it's a crap idea, just forget I said anything"

"Are you going to let me answer now or are you going to keep on answering for me?" She nodded and pulled a contrite face chewing the inside corner of her lip "Of course we'll go and see your mum, it'll give them a chance to take me outside and shoot me as a child snatcher"

"As a what?"

"Well they're bound to be a bit upset that I'm so much older than you, aren't they?"

"Oh, you poor old bugger! I keep forgetting that you're nearly old enough to be me dad"

"Very funny, bloody hilarious, but you can't get away from it, I have got a fair few years on you"

"Not that many, and change the bleeding record why don't you? I really thought you'd got over all that shit"

"I'm trying"

-OG-

"It's very good to meet you, Molly has told me a lot about you"

"Well she hasn't told us anything about _you_ "

Nan was looking at Charles with deep suspicion written all over her face as she shook the hand he was offering her, Belinda had just smiled vaguely at him as she'd shaken his hand.

"Belinda tells me that you're a lot older than our Molls, so how old are you exactly?"

"Nan! Stop, it"

"Why? First of all you come in here and bring some bloke with you and tell us you're living with him, some bloke we've never even met, someone I've never even heard of and let me tell you young lady, I ain't too happy about that and then yer mum tells me that he's a lot older than you and then I look at him and I can see that for meself, I mean, he might be a bit of a looker but he's a lot older than you, and we thought you was in Italy, didn't even know you was coming backwards and forwards"

"Nan, I am not living with him and he's thirty three, he's not ready for his pension yet"

"It's alright Molly, I can speak for myself" He put his hand on her shoulder squeezing it slightly to try and reassure her that he wasn't about to flounce out or take offence at the interrogation, even though they were discussing him as if he wasn't there and he did wonder why it was her grandmother and not her mother asking the questions, her father was nowhere to be seen "We met out in Turkey so we've known each other for quite a while and Molly comes and stays with me when she gets enough leave"

"What? Separate rooms?" Nan's voice was incredulous.

"Nan, that's none of your bleeding business either"

Molly could feel the blush creeping up her neck, although she had no idea why, it could hardly be a newsflash to her Nan that she was no longer a virgin and hadn't been one for a very long time.

"No, I care about Molly and" He squeezed her shoulder again and smiled "Well, we care about each other and we're very happy together, so there's no need for anyone to worry about her"

"Course we're gonna worry, it's not like she'd win any prizes for the blokes she's picked before" Nan sniffed to demonstrate her opinion of Molly's previous taste in men "She wouldn't be the first girl to be taken in by some looker who's a bit smooth and who's got a bob or two and Belinda tells me that you've been married before, so, divorced are you?"

"Yes, I have been married and yes, I am divorced"

"No kids then I take it?"

"One, I've got a little boy, he's six"

"I don't approve of divorce where there are kiddies involved" Nan sniffed again to indicate her deep disapproval from her newly acquired moral high ground.

"Fucks sake, Nan, could you please shut up now, else I'll be really sorry I come home and bought him with me, Mum could you tell her please?"

Nan took no notice whatsoever of anything anyone else might be thinking or saying as she carried on with her mission to make the posh bloke squirm, to see what he was made of "I know our Molls is still quite young but you're not, so if you're thinking of having kids with her you'd better be planning on sticking around"

"Nan, we're not thinking of having kids, we haven't even bought a bloody pot plant together, so will you stop it now, please?"

"In a couple of years Molly might decide that she doesn't want to stick with me, that she'd rather be with someone younger, someone who's less likely to have a heart attack when he runs for the bus"

"You don't look like you ever go on a bus, young man"

"Oh so he's young now, is he? And you're right, Nan, he's in the army so he's really, really fit and he never goes on a bus, so is there any chance the pair of you could put a bleeding sock in it?"

Nan was just starting to get and obey Belinda' summons to follow her to the kitchen when Molly heard the unmistakeable sound of her younger sister who didn't even bother to try and lower her voice as she stopped and questioned their mum in the hallway.

"Is he here? Has she bought this rich old bugger home with her? What's he like?"

Molly yelled at Bella that they could hear every word and to shut her bleeding gob before she came out there and shut it for her then looked at Charles who was chewing his lip, trying very hard not to laugh.

"Can we go now …. please?" She whimpered, totally mortified.

"That went well" He started laughing "I'll tell you what, how would you like to show me Dover Street? I think you could do with a bit of cheering up, and I'm bloody knackered"

"Will you stop bleeding laughing, now you know why it's better for me head to stop away, I'm dying here"

-OG-

 _ **A**_ _/N: T_ _ **his was their first step back into real life, which I hope you enjoyed but just a warning, it may get a bit trickier later…. Thank you for the nice messages I got on FB – you are all very kind, but as I'm pretty cr*p at that stuff you might need to be bit patient (and I'm really not joking) even my hero husband has given me up as a bad job, says I'm bloody hopeless!**_


	16. Chapter 16

"So who is he?"

"Who you talking about?"

"Your mate over there, the one who's drooling, you can't miss him, he's the one with his tongue hanging out"

Molly turned and took a quick peep over her shoulder, even though she already knew exactly who and what she'd see.

"Charles, that's Nasri and I've told you all about him before, remember? He's the one I swapped with that time so as I could come home and meet you and I told you that what he mostly wanted was to get in me knickers, just ignore him, pretend he don't exist, I do"

"You didn't tell me he'd come to Greece with you"

"He never come with me, well, yeah, I s'pose he did actually, he's one of me team but mostly he's just a bleeding pain in the bum"

Charles had arrived on the island the previous evening, but the visit hadn't started well. For the first time Molly hadn't been able to meet his flight, being a team leader had meant that she couldn't just slip off to go to the airport and leave the rest of them to process the influx of asylum seekers who'd just arrived. They were all wet and bedraggled and scared and needed help to make their way up the beach as they looked for something to eat and for somewhere to curl up for the night. She had got to his hotel very late the previous evening and had been so wiped out that she couldn't keep her eyes open and had, in fact, fallen asleep while he was still in the bathroom, so that the passionate reunion he'd been looking forward to hadn't happened until they'd woken in the morning and Charles had felt that Molly was distracted, not that she wasn't loving, she was, but he felt she was just a little bit distant.

When they'd walked down to the harbour side one of the first people Charles had noticed was the small dark haired Moroccan lad he'd last seen in Lampedusa, a lad who was good looking if rather short, a lad who obviously had the serious hots for Molly, his eyes followed her everywhere, and who appeared to be very, very pleased with himself, there was a huge smirk on his face whenever he caught Charles' eye.

She had already been home from Greece for one weekend, during which she had said very little about her new role, or the island, in fact she'd said very little about anything, she'd just spent most of the weekend falling asleep, and hadn't really mentioned anything about anyone she was working with here. As Charles watched her organising her team he realised that he was now convinced that something between them had changed and he had this horrible niggling suspicion that it had more than a bit to do with the young Moroccan who was staring at her so intently. Bloody Nasri had a hell of a lot going for him, not only did he have loads in common with Molly, for a start he was young and therefore much closer in age, but the Moroccan bloke was here, all day, every day, with her all the time and not every second or third weekend and a plane ride away.

"So, what is going on with him then?"

"Nothing, didn't you listen to me? I just bloody told you" She tried very hard not to let her irritation show, as usual she was bone-achingly tired "Hang on just a minute, what are you trying to suggest here?"

Charles shrugged.

"Are you saying that I would shag a git like him? Are you saying that I would do something like that when I'm with you?" Molly not only sounded appalled but looked it as well and was very close to tears as he looked away slightly, staring out at the beach and the sea "What, you think that I would shag him and then come back and shag you, go between the two of you, is that you think?"

"Is that how you see it, that you're shagging me? That we're shagging each other?"

"I dunno, you tell me, I never thought of it like that, but seems like you do …." She looked at him, eyes swimming in tears, a combination of being very hurt and blisteringly angry with him "You're jealous, you're bleeding jealous and there's nothing to be jealous of, I can't believe you're jealous of a tit like Nasri, but I think you might of just done me a massive bleeding favour here. If that's what you think of me, if you think that I'm the sort of girl who would do something like that, then I'm bloody glad you said it cos it means I know exactly what you think of me, and if that's what you think, then I don't wanna see you again" She paused and sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her finger, then turned ready to march off and leave him standing there, lifting his eyebrows then blinking with shock at the way she'd reacted.

"Molly, for fuck sake …"

"What?" She looked at her watch "I don't have time, and actually, you know what, Charles? I don't bleeding care, in fact I wish I could count all the fucks I don't give but I've only got eight fingers, well, I could use me thumbs as well I s'pose, but even then it wouldn't be enough, so have we done here?" She didn't wait for an answer, just carried on "Yeah, thought so"

"Stop it, you know you don't mean a word of any of that" She stood still with her back to him and looked at her watch again, underlining that she was supposed to be working "I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean that I thought you would do something like that, that you are that kind of girl, you know I don't think that"

"So, why did you say it then?"

Molly had had a lot of fights with a lot of boys over the years, fights which usually signified the beginning of the end, if not the end itself, and she'd had this niggling feeling of disquiet in the pit of her stomach ever since the last time she'd been home. Charles was right, something had changed, the initial excitement of seeing him for a couple of days every few weeks or so wasn't enough for her anymore and she hated this feeling that they'd gone as far as they were going, that this was it, that there wasn't going to be anything else after this.

"I don't know, you know that losing you is the last thing I want, I'm sorry, it was a bloody stupid thing to say, it's probably because I miss you so much"

"What, you think I don't miss you too?" She still hadn't turned round to look at him, she didn't want him to see the tears that were starting to spill over down her face "Charles, if you think that I'm the sort of girl what would do something like that, then you should be honest and say, cos maybe it's time for us to call this a day"

"No of course not"

They'd made up the fight, both of them horribly aware that their time together was so limited that they couldn't afford to waste a single second being upset or angry with one another, so that although on the surface everything was back to their normal loving relationship, they were also both aware that there was a little undercurrent of something that had gone unresolved.

-OG-

This was the second time she'd been back from Greece and after Charles' last visit out there and their vicious fight about Nasri, they had been treading on eggshells around each other. The plan was for Charles to bring Sam out to the island for a holiday when his school broke up for the summer in a few weeks, Molly had still had no word on Serbia, but she was now terrified that she had just given it her best shot at making sure that he would be glad to see her go, to see the back of her. She hadn't even met Sam yet, the plan had been for them to meet and to go to a theme park or something, maybe the next time she was home, before he came out to Greece for a holiday anyway, but then Charles had started to talk about the meeting he'd got scheduled with his solicitor for the following week and Molly couldn't keep her gob shut. She knew that she should of kept it buttoned, that it really wasn't any of her business, but she hadn't.

"Charles, about Sam, can I talk to you about him?"

"What about him?"

"I aint got kids, well, obviously you know that, but I've spent a lot of time with lots of different kids in the last few years and, I don't wanna upset you or nothing 'n I know that it's none of me bleeding business, but are you sure about what it is you're doing?"

"What are you on about?"

"Look, he's very little, he's far too little to be sent off to some boarding school or wherever, he needs his mum, well he needs you as well, obviously, but taking him away from his mum? Are you sure that that's the right thing to be doing? That it's not just cos you and Rebecca are fighting over him like he's some sort of prize or some'ing, is it what's best for him? I mean, is it that you think this bloke she's shacked up with would be cruel to him or some'ing, is that it?"

"No, I'm sure that there's nothing like that, but that is not what this is about, so thank you for your advice, I'll certainly bear it in mind"

Charles' stared at her for a moment, his voice cold and clipped, his face set and furious, reminding her of the first time they'd met, his expression as much as the words he used. He got up from the sofa, checked his pockets for his keys and walked out without giving her another glance, leaving Molly wincing as she watched him go. That had not gone the way she'd meant it to, well it couldn't have gone any worse if she'd tried, her and her big gob, and if she'd stopped and thought it through she would never have started it, but she still thought he was making a mistake, well that both of them were, Rebecca, that she hadn't even met, and him.

She had no idea where he'd gone off to as she wandered from room to room and then wondered whether she should start packing her stuff so as to be ready to leave when he got back, she couldn't possibly go without telling him and saying goodbye, although where the fuck she was gonna go she'd got no idea, try to bring her flight forward if he could or home to east Ham if not. She was just sure he wouldn't want her in the flat anymore, she'd well and truly overstepped the mark, and what with fighting the way they had the last time they'd been together as well, it really didn't look good.

After their enchanting visit to Molly's parents' and Charles' meeting with Nan, Molly had been exceeding reluctant to involve herself in any more stuff with relatives, so she'd never met his mum and dad, in spite of his constant reassurances that his parents would love her. Nan's interrogation had amused him, as much as it had mortified Molly, even though he'd said it had left him exhausted and that the army could use her, but that he understood that she'd only done it because she loved her granddaughter and wanted to make sure he wasn't some sort of shit-bag. Molly said Nan had done it because she was a bleeding nosy old bag who'd enjoyed embarrassing her and putting him on the spot.

They'd both enjoyed their trip to Dover Street afterwards although Charles had picked up one or two things, turned them over, looked at the price tags, gulped and put them down again hastily and very, very carefully, which had made Molly giggle. He had bought her a hair slide, a pretty little gilt thing with green stones in it, something she now got out of her bag and twisted between her fingers.

Thinking about that day now made her want to cry.

He was gone for hours, so she started to get her things out of drawers, the wardrobe and the bathroom cabinet and then packed them neatly into one of his suitcases, her small weekend bag would only hold a few bits and pieces. There was something so horribly final about what she was doing that she had to bite her lip to stop the tears that were threatening to start.

"Where you been, you're bleeding soaked?"

He hadn't taken a coat or a jacket or anything and it had been raining heavily for the past hour or so. She wanted desperately to go over to where he stood in the bedroom doorway watching what she was doing, and just put her arms round him, to do her best to put the smile back on his face, the special smile he seemed to reserve just for her.

.

"I'm so sorry, Charles, I had no right to say any of that stuff, it really is none of my bloody business"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm packing, I thought you'd most likely want me …"

"To what? To go?" He interrupted her "Is that why you're packing your stuff? Of course I don't want you to go and anyway" He shrugged and bit the inside of his lip, then put his head back and gulped loudly as if he was biting back tears "You're right, I mean, I know that you're right, I just couldn't bear the thought of losing him but taking him away from his mother? that isn't the right thing to do either, is it?"

"No" Molly had a huge lump in her throat, the way she had when they'd said goodbye in Turkey; she wanted to weep for him.

"Your grandmother's right, divorce is an absolute bitch when there are kids stuck in the middle of it"

"I'm sorry" She didn't explain what she was sorry about, just went on "Can I come over there and hug you, I know I opened me big gob when I shouldn't have"

"Fuck sake, that's the last thing I want, for you to go, I don't want to bloody lose you as well" He went across and sat next to her on the bed where she'd been endlessly folding and re-folding her clothes as she'd packed, putting off the moment when she would have to close the bag and do up the zip. She put a tentative arm round his waist and gave him a little squeeze as she tried to make him feel a bit better, hating the unhappy look on his face.

"You're not losing me, and you won't be losing Sam either, you'll always be his dad, and he'll come back home for his holidays and maybe Christmas 'n that and you can Skype him all the time and go out there and see him every chance you get, you'll probably see more of him if you're not fighting with whatsherface anyhow"

"What about you? I want to see you every chance I get as well"

"We'll sort some'ing out, now go and have a bath before you catch your bleeding death, I mean I know it's s'posed to be summer 'n that, but for fuck's sake"

"Are you going to come and scrub my back?"

"If you're lucky"

-OG-

It was the first time she'd ever heard him call her name as he came and she held him as tightly as she could, trying very hard to wrap him up in the way she felt about him, to show him with her arms and her legs and the rest of her body, but at the same time not wanting to show him that her heart was breaking into bits for him.

"You know how important you are to me, don't you?" He'd buried his head in her neck so that his voice was quiet and muffled "Don't even think about going will you? I can't imagine being without you"

"Where did you go this afternoon?"

"Nowhere special, I was just walking and thinking" He shrugged "then getting wet" He snorted a slight laugh "At first I kept telling myself that you had this all wrong, that you don't know Sam and that you don't understand, that you just don't want him to live with me, all sorts of crap really"

"How could you think that?"

"I don't, I was just trying to avoid looking at the truth, it was far easier to blame you, to tell myself that I'm the one who's right and that you're the one who's got it all wrong, but you haven't, have you?"

"Nah, don't think so, sorry"

"No don't be, I'm the one that's sorry, I've been behaving like a total arse, but you know what Molly, I really need you to know that I love you"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: There are very often jealousies and insecurities with long distance relationships, usually with no foundation at all and, as we know, CJ is capable of being a bit on the sulky and jealous side, still, jollying him out of it would be a nice way to spend a few hours …. Form an orderly queue behind me!**_

 _ **Chapter 17 will be posted on Monday, so I hope everyone has a nice weekend, see you then.**_


	17. Chapter 17

"You know I don't really believe in all that don't you? I'm not even sure I know what it means"

She looked past him with an unfocussed expression on her face then snorted a short laugh.

"The first bloke what ever told me he loved me was from school, he was a good bit older than me, I was only about fourteen and he was seventeen or eighteen ….. Ricky Parkes, must of stopped on to do exams or some'ing so everyone had him down as a wanker" She smiled almost surprising herself that she could remember him so clearly, even remembering his name without having to search through her memory bank "He kept on and on at me, telling me that he loved me, course what he really meant was that he wanted to get in me knickers, but I was a virgin so wouldn't let him, bloody late starter for our school, that was me, but in the end he said he'd dump me if I didn't, so I did, muppet that I was"

"It was horrible" She sniggered then shuddered at the memory "He dumped me next day anyhow, and then I found out he'd scored me marks out of ten on the wall of the boy's bogs, he were trying to get in with the cool kids, be one of the lads. Still …. " She gave another short snort of laughter and shrugged again as Charles stayed quiet, he'd got no idea what to say "I s'pose I should be grateful that I got a seven and a bit"

"There were other blokes after him, a few of them actually, what said they loved me, but I never believed any of them, well, until I met Bryan and I bloody well believed him didn't I and look where that got me?" She looked at him as he put his hand out and stroked her face, running his fingers down from her cheekbones and then cupping her chin in his hand as he leaned forward and kissed her lips gently.

"It's not all that shit what makes me scared to believe you, and I do wanna believe you, it's just that it's really bleeding hard cos apart from anything else, you don't really know me, do you? And if you did, you most likely wouldn't even like me"

"I do know you, of course I know you, what are you talking about? You know what, Molly? When I first met you, that first day, I thought you were a gobby little cockney and God, you still are most of the time, but in a perfect world your voice would always be the first thing I'd hear in the morning, not to mention your face on the pillow next to me, and the last at night, and while photos are lovely, especially yours" He laughed then shook his head "They're not quite the same thing"

"I know, still at least in me photos I aint got a big gob"

"It's one of the things I love most about you, your big gob"

"Really?"

"No" He laughed "But I will show you just how much I love you, even with your big gob, there's a car boot sale tomorrow, do you want to go?"

"Oh yeah, you promised to take me didn't you? Just before that arsehole tried to blow us all up, and don't pull that face, we might find some precious thingummy thingy whatsit"

"What the fuck is a thingummy thingy whatsit?"

"I dunno, do I? but we might find one, and if we do, it'll be worth a load of money"

"Or not! Just a thought, Miss Dawes, but how will we know when we find one if we don't know what they look like?"

"Don't it ever get boring being such a bloody smartarse? Must be bleeding hard for you living with the rest of us"

Molly giggled, glad that somehow she seemed to have managed to put the smile back on his face, that he was smirking at her for all the world as if the last few hours hadn't happened.

"Nope, I'm used to it" He laughed as she pulled a face at him "And if we do make a bloody fortune, you can give up work and stay here with me"

"What exactly you saying? That you think I work for the money, have you seen the peanuts I get paid? I'm not even sure it's minimum wage, mate"

"No, of course I know you don't do it for the money, I was joking, I know it's because you love it, it's just a shame that I have to go where I'm posted, well, that's the army for you, no bloody consideration for anyone, and that you have to as well, so it doesn't leave us a lot of wriggle room, does it?"

"Who told you that I love my job?"

"What do you mean who told me? You did"

"No I bloody didn't and if I did I was lying" Molly shrugged and gave him a half smile "I used to, well, a bit, or quite a lot actually when I was first in Turkey, before you was there, but then after that bloody bomb it all went a bit to shit, I mean, I'm scared most of the time, bit twitchy, well quite a lot twitchy actually, whenever there's a loud noise or when someone screams or some'ing"

"Fuck sake, Molly, why haven't you said something before? And what was all that team leader stuff about, I thought you wanted to do more, to get on, get more responsibility?"

"I know, I wanted to be a team leader, not only for the money but I wanted to see if I could do it, and also cos it would show that they'd forgotten about all that shit with Bryan and I thought that if I were team leader it would help me, you know, get over it cos team leaders don't have to go right into where all the people are bunched up, they can stay back a bit"

"Is it working?"

"Nah not really, I still get this horrible sort of sick feeling in me guts" She shook her head "Me mouth goes all dry and I can't swallow and I feel like I'm gonna puke or some'ing, and sometimes I just wanna turn round, run away and hide"

"But you don't do you? So, just stop, just don't do it anymore, leave, find something else, something you'd enjoy and that won't scare you, you've done your bit" He put his arm round her and squeezed her shoulders, appalled that he had never noticed that this was how she felt, that he'd seen her working, seen her get involved with hordes of refugees and he hadn't picked up on it, hadn't given it a thought.

"I can't do that, everyone keeps on and on about these poor buggers out there, how they're making their way towards us, and that they need our help and how important it all is, what we're doing, and I'd feel really bad if I just walked away, said I couldn't do it no more, I mean, especially if some'ing happened and people got hurt. I feel bad enough already cos I find meself looking at " She paused and chewed her bottom lip "and I don't always trust them, I worry all the time that one of them could be another nut job, I mean, how are we s'posed to know?"

"Well, you don't, no-one does, but you've been brilliant, you've kept on doing something that scares you and that's brave, believe me, but you shouldn't be making yourself ill, no-one expects you to do that"

"How do we know then? And you're biased cos I'm not brave, I'm really not. Oh sorry, look don't worry about me, I'm just being a bit of a muppet, feeling sorry for meself" She tried very hard to pin a smile on her face "Can we talk about some'ing else now cos I'm getting a bit sick of this conversation?"

"This conversation isn't over"

"Yeah it is, can we talk about the car boot instead?"

-OG-

"Molly, its bloody hideous and what the fuck would you do with it anyway?" He couldn't keep the bubble of laughter out of his voice as he bit his lip and smirked.

"I dunno do I? I thought it would make a nice present for someone"

"Fine, as long as it's for someone you hate and as long as that's not me"

"You ungrateful bugger, you don't know, I might of bought it specially for you"

"You haven't, have you?"

"Might of"

They'd spent the best part of two hours on a warm and sultry Sunday morning walking round a huge, crowded car boot sale with Molly scrutinising trestle table after trestle table as Charles tried his best not to look as bored as he felt as he followed her around. He actually thought it all looked like junk that should go straight in the bin but was very reluctant to say anything in case she accused him of being too posh for re-cycled stuff, or as he would have described it, crap. As the sun came out and it got even warmer there were more and more people meandering slowly along the lines of stalls and he wanted more than anything to go and find somewhere to sit down, to have a drink and try and pick up the conversation that they'd been having the previous day. He was worried about her, she was going back to Greece first thing the following morning and there was nothing he could do to fix things.

"I'm sure I saw summat like this on the tele, you know on Bargain Hunt or some'ing, might be an heirloom" Molly held up a small, and to Charles' eyes, particularly hideous pot with a big chip out of the lip and tried very hard to stop giggling as she took in his appalled expression and continued with her mission to wind him up.

"I don't know about a family heirloom, Miss Dawes, but that looks like something you used to be able to buy in Woolworths"

"Woolworths is shut, innit? See, there you go, told you it was old didn't I?"

"Not that old, and the last thing I want to do is upset you or anyone else, but that thing is truly bloody horrible"

"Yeah, you're right, it is innit?"

Molly was shaking with laughter as she put the 'Woolworths' pot back on the trestle table, then shook her head and smiled apologetically at the stall holder who'd thought she'd made a sale. She squeezed his hand as they walked on hand in hand and Charles tugged her in the direction of a small caravan with tables and chairs in front where they were selling tea and coffee and cans of nicely chilled soft drinks.

"I'll tell you what, I'm a bit tired, so why don't we get a drink and then I'll sit here and wait for you as you go and look at the rest, you'll be much better off without me tagging along anyway"

"No, no bloody way, you promised, anyhow I don't believe that you're tired, a big tough soldier like you, come on, Rambo, you're just trying to get out of it"

"I'm not Rambo, I'm not tough, I'm hot and my feet hurt"

"Stop whinging" She looked at his face, as he put on his favourite pleading puppy dog expression and couldn't help giggling "Oh go on then, we'll have a drink and a little sit down, rest your feet for a bit you poor old bugger, and then we can do some more in a bit"

"Oi, less of the old if you don't mind"

A cup of tea, and after he'd looked askance at the coffee urn, a can of coke in their hands, they'd moved to one of the tables that was shaded by an umbrella that looked as if it had been 'liberated' after a hard winter left out in a pub garden.

"Molly, we still need to talk"

"If this is about all that crap from yesterday, then no, we definitely don't, I've already said, it'll be fine, I'll be fine"

"Of course you will, but I need you to do just one thing as a favour to me, could you please go and see the medical people when you get back, tell them how you're feeling, you can't keep on keeping it to yourself"

"No, really can't do that" She shook her head emphatically "They'll think I'm some sort of nutter or some'ing, anyhow I'm sure it's not just me feels like this"

After they'd bought a vase from one of the stalls and spent the princely sum of £1.50 on it, which was less than they'd spent on their drinks or the station car park, they gave up looking for the family heirloom. Molly kept on reminding him that all that meant was that they'd have to come back another time to keep on trying, and had then laughed at the martyred expression on his face as they walked on looking for a pub to have lunch.

"Lovely, can't wait"

"Sarky bugger"

-OG-

"Promise me?"

"Nah, I never said I would, did I? I don't know how it works in the bleeding army, but I do know that out there if they think you've gone a bit bonkers they'll get shot of you straight off, and then what will I do?"

"Molly, it's all to do with trauma and stress and it's really common, it happens to loads of people when they've been caught up in something, you know, like that bombing, lots of soldiers get it, it's got nothing to do with anyone being bonkers as you put it, honestly it hasn't"

He was going to tell her about his own brush with PTSD after he was shot, but the words stuck in his throat. He, more than anyone, understood what it felt like to be reluctant to talk, he'd buried his own feelings as deeply as he could and had found being forced to talk about it with an army counsellor just about as painful as anything could get.

"I don't wanna do it, so don't keep on bloody trying to make me"

"I know you don't want to, but I wish you would, for me, because I'm worried about you"

"Nag, nag, nag, do you ever bleeding give up? And don't worry about me, I'll be fine" She grinned "Go on, smile, you love me really, you know you do"

"Nope, I never give up" He totally ignored what she'd said about not worrying "And yes I love you, so I'll take that as a 'yes' then, shall I?"

"Okay, okay I'll try and do it in a couple of days, now you gonna kiss me goodbye, cos I've gotta go"

"Not good enough"

"I tell you what, I'm bleeding surprised you don't come over there with me and take me like I was Sam's age"

"I would if I thought it would work"

"Fuck sake, alright, okay, you win, I'll sort it tomorrow or the next day, and I'll speak to you later, bye"

"Molly?"

"What, you don't trust me?"

"Yes of course I trust you" He raised his eyebrows and nodded, then bent his head and kissed her "You just promised didn't you?"

-OG-

He'd been lying when he'd said he believed her, he knew all about delaying tactics, about putting things off that you're reluctant about, but he was also pretty sure that nagging the life out of her wasn't going to work either, she was obstinate and stubborn and would dig her heels in, exactly as she had over wearing that Kevlar. Sitting in his office with Fingers and Mansfield and listening to Easter catalogue the crimes that he needed to discipline, while twirling his pen round and round in his fingers and staring at the wall behind their heads, he was finding it incredibly difficult to concentrate and to give the Corporal his full attention. It all seemed pretty bloody trivial and stupid to him when all he really wanted to do was pick up the phone and ask her whether she'd done it yet and then scream "Why the fuck not?" when she told him she hadn't got round to it, or whatever today's excuse was going to be.

Having just forced his attention back to the matter in hand he almost ignored the noise his mobile made as it vibrated and danced across the desk top, then idly peered at the display to check the caller ID before sitting bolt upright and putting his hand up to stop Fingers in mid-flow of exaggerated and highly creative excuse making, something he would have enjoyed listening to at any other time.

"Hang on a second fellas, I need to take this, could you just wait outside for a couple of minutes?"

He swiped the answer icon and spoke "Hold on, I'll be with you in two secs…." He could hear her voice, tinny with distance and background noise 'are you busy, are you in the middle of something?' then 'shall I call back later?' so that he almost shouted "No, just hang on a minute …I won't be a sec ….." He glared at Easter and nodded his head indicating the door, willing him to do as he was told just for once and follow the squaddies so that he could talk to her "Sorry, I had to get rid of the audience, is everything okay?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Hope everyone had a nice weekend despite the cr*p weather. Him in charge insisted that the wind would be great on the top of Ditchling Beacon and that Lily would love it, can someone remind me again why I married him? Windy it might have been, and it certainly bl**dy was, but you could see s*d all, it was misty and wet and drizzley, oh and cold, and the dog hates the rain …. and the wind ….and the cold … like me she's happiest when we light the fire and curl up …..**_

 _ **Please review this for me as I am having my usual "Is anyone still out there?" wobble.**_


	18. Chapter 18

"I bleeding well told you, didn't I?"

"What, what's happened? Come on, what did you tell me?"

He could hear the anger in her voice, coupled with just the hint of tears, but whether they were tears of upset or of blind fury with him he couldn't tell over a mobile phone. Molly didn't know herself what she felt as she straightened her arm out in front of her and looked again at the purple and yellow mark in the crook of her elbow where the small bruise from her blood test was spreading into some kind of technicolour badge. The medic who'd taken her blood could have badly done with some more lessons in her opinion, it would have been less painful to have taken her own blood, at least she wouldn't have ended up looking as if she'd been attacked with one of them harpoon gun things.

"We had this meeting about Serbia this morning" She sniffed, angry with herself at the same time as feeling this nugget of guilty relief, something she didn't feel she could acknowledge to anyone, not even Charles, well especially not Charles, she didn't wanna tell him he was _right_ "And I went and told them didn't I? Told them all that crap, the way I promised I would and now everyone else is going without me, they're sending me home, told you didn't I? Knew I shouldn't of said anything, what a bleeding muppet"

"What did they say?"

"Said I needed a break from all this and that there's other stuff I can do for a bit, stuff back at home, in England"

"So it's not that bad is it? I mean, it's not permanent then, is it, this coming home? You can go back later on if you want to, when you're feeling better"

"Yeah, I s'pose" She was beginning to sound like a sulky child now, as if she was going to say 'It's not fair' and stamp her foot any second "But it won't bleeding be the same will it? I mean, the people, everything really, it'll all change"

A non-committal 'Hmm' was all he allowed himself, if he'd said something trite like everything changes all the time she would probably hang up on him and he needed to know about picking her up at the airport. As he turned his attention back to the serial crimes of Fingers and Mansfield and got ready to call Easter and the two miscreants back in, he couldn't quite wipe the grin of relief off his face as he prepared to piss the Corporal off and let the two cockwombles get away with it … again.

-OG-

"Well, about time, I thought you'd forgotten all about me" Grace laughed into her web-cam to show that she didn't actually mean it "So what's up, what's new?"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry I haven't rung, I know I should of, but things have been a bit full on lately so I haven't had a lot of time, but everything's changed here, I'm not going to Serbia anymore, I'm going home for a bit, well, back to the UK" She smiled at the familiar face, she still missed Grace very badly "Mind, there was nothing stopping you from ringing me was there?"

"Sorry but I couldn't possibly do that, I never know where you are or what you're up to do I? and I would hate to interrupt something" She pretended to leer "So, this decision to go home, tell me, has it by any chance got anything to do with a certain tall guy, you know, dark hair and nice teeth, oh and a nice arse, a guy that wears army fatigues?" Her eyebrows were almost up to her hairline as she pulled her 'chief interrogator's face "Because I've heard everything you've ever had to say about him and I still reckon you're just a little bit smitten"

"No course I'm not" Molly paused, then giggled and held her thumb and forefinger up in front of the web-cam showing a tiny gap between them "Well, maybe just a little tiny bit, and only sometimes when he's not pissing me off" She bit her lip and pulled a wry face at Grace "It doesn't make any sense anyhow, I mean, he's bleeding posh and he's got a bob or two, and me, well, I'm just me aren't I?"

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, honey, but love doesn't make any sense, you can't rationalise it, you just have to go with your gut" She nodded emphatically.

"What's all this calling me 'honey' 'n all this bleeding 'rationalise' crap? You sound like a bleeding Yank" 

"I am a Yank"

"Oh yeah, so you are"

"Anyway stop changing the subject, we were talking about you and Captain Gorgeous and I knew it, I frigging well knew it, so come on, spill, tell nice Auntie Gracie all about it"

"One, you're not me auntie 'n two, you're not bleeding nice, so I'm not telling you anything, and how would you know about love and stuff anyway?" She sniggered and then referred back to their time under canvas in Turkey "Is this crap all from them 'self help' books you buy from Amazon? Cos let me tell you, they see you coming, mate, and anyhow, I'm not going back home cos of him but cos I've been a bit Tom and Dick the last little while"

"That means sick, doesn't it? What's wrong?" Grace immediately stopped the laughing and teasing and looked worried.

"I've been bleeding tired most of the time, I mean absolutely cream crackered, and shit scared the rest of it, well, ever since that bloody bomb actually, so they reckon I need a break, maybe work in Family Tracing for a bit. Anyhow I've had these tests, you know, this vampire took an armful of me blood cos they said I looked a bit washed out and it seems like I'm anaemic or some'ing like that …"

"Molly, I still get the shits when I think about that day, I still dream about it sometimes and then, when I wake up, I'm in this pool of sweat, you know, like I'm sick to my stomach or something, but hey, that's enough about all the shit we're trying to forget, what's caused the anaemia and what are they going to do about it?"

"Dunno, they haven't said and they won't do nothing out here, I've gotta sort it when I get back home, gotta see a doctor 'n get some iron or some'ing" She shrugged "It's not a big deal apparently" She smiled to show Grace that she wasn't worried, even though she'd never even considered there could be a physical reason for the way she felt. Years ago when she'd been an HCA in east Ham she'd come across women all the time who'd had iffy blood counts, but that was them and this was her and she couldn't quite remember the causes, if she'd ever really known them. Her quick look on-line had given her an equally quick attack of the heebies.

"Hey, you haven't mentioned your mum or your love life, so you keeping something secret?" She didn't wait for Grace's reply, just ploughed on wanting to change the subject away from her health before she did what Grace would describe as a major bit of over-sharing "Right, Grasshopper, don't bother to deny it, who the fuck is he, where d'you meet him, does he make your bits twitch and why haven't I heard about him? Not necessarily in that order, oh, 'n I nearly forgot, what's his name?"

"His name is Josef, Joey, and I met him at work, he's a fundraiser and I haven't told anyone about him yet, its early days. My Mom knows eff-all about any of it and I'm not fixin' for her to find out any time soon, so keep it to yourself, okay?"

"Bugger, and there was I thinking of ringing her up and having a nice little chat, and you never said about your bits?"

"My bits are just fine, thank you _so_ much for asking"

"You're welcome" She giggled "Lovely, as me soldier would say"

-OG-

"Are you trying to seduce me? I thought you were supposed to be tired"

"Not that tired, actually, come to think of it I'm not tired at all tonight" She put her hand on his groin then laughed "I think it's working" She laughed again as he raised his eyebrowws "Seducing you I mean"

Molly had been squirming in his lap for the last few minutes as they lay on the sofa watching some rugby match, although only one of them was actually watching it, the other one was doing her best to distract him by wiggling her bum around and putting her head in the way of him being able to see the screen so that he had to keep peering round her. The bone aching weariness she'd been suffering from in Greece had almost completely vanished in the two days she'd been home, but even so she'd made an appointment to register at a local surgery and to see the doctor to pass on the envelope they'd given her in Greece. So far she'd resisted the temptation to open it and read what they'd said, her on-line research had sewn enough seeds in her head to make it difficult to ignore as it was. If it hadn't been for Charles' nagging she would have just waited out for a bit longer, probably until she was forced to deal with it.

Telling him about the blood test and the result drew exactly the response she'd expected from him and was the reason she hadn't said anything in the first place. He'd immediately started looking up local doctor's surgeries on-line so that she'd ended up yelling at him about would he ever learn that she wasn't Sam's age and could look after herself, and had felt horribly guilty afterwards for a massive over-reaction.

"Stop it" He put his hands down and tried to lift her away from where she'd wriggled down his body until she was in the right position to start slowly unbuttoning his jeans while he pretended to concentrate on the rugby and peered round the side of her head "Gloucester have just scored and I bloody well missed it"

"You never used to mind, you used to be bloody grateful" She giggled "Does that mean Bath have nearly lost now?" She tried not to sound gleeful, because if Bath were losing he'd be upset but on the other hand she'd be able to turn Sky sports off and get his undivided attention "Cos you never know, you might score here if you play your cards right"

"No, it's not over yet it's only half time, so you've got ten minutes"

"What?" She was outraged "Bloody hell, I were expecting some'ing, I dunno, a bit more romantic than _you've got ten minutes"_

She looked at him as he sat up and pulled her up towards his face and realised that he was biting the inside of his lip and trying hard not to smirk.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"Would I? Well, yes, maybe just a bit"

As he looked down at his groin and unbuttoned jeans she shook her head, got off the sofa and moved back a bit so that she was just out of his reach as he sat up and swung his legs to the floor. She stood in front of the television and slowly undid the buttons of her shirt, throwing it on the floor and then started sliding the straps of her black bra, the one Gracie had described as her 'pulling kit' down her arms, and pushed her elbows in to increase her cleavage as she tried her best to act like a stripper, then smirked as he took this big sharp breath in. She didn't take her eyes from his, just kept on slowly peeling off her clothes then running her tongue across her lips and watching the effect she was having on him as his smile disappeared, and only then did she allow him reach out and pull her in so that she was standing between his legs, close enough to put her hand down to where she'd already undone his buttons and slip it inside.

He held onto her hips and helped her to move on top of him so that it took no time flat before his eyes were all huge darkened pupils. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, then chewed at his bottom lip before muttering under his breath, asking her whether she was close, which she wasn't, but said nothing. She knew him well enough to know that he was very close to the moment when he wouldn't be able to wait out any longer and suddenly it didn't matter that she wasn't going to come, that there was no need for them to cram everything into a couple of days or worry about wasting a second of their time together, they had all the time in the world.

"Sorry, I'll make it up to you" He kissed the tip of her nose, then leaned over and found the remote to turn the rugby off.

"I know you will, and you're still me most favourite person in the world" She kissed him back, then flattened his curls with her hands and ran them down the sides of his face, smiled and got off him to pick up her clothes from where they seemed to have spread themselves all over the floor "You can watch the rest of that if you want, I'm gonna have a bath"

"Oh God, you're dangerous after a bath, or is that only after you've had wine as well?"

"Lucky old you, you could get to find out later"

-OG-

"So, let me get this straight, the job is trying to trace families where they've got separated, putting kids and parents back together, that sort of thing?"

She nodded.

"Well, I don't understand, it sounds perfect for you, and now you say you can't do it because … why? He looked at her with his eyebrows raised waiting for her to explain what the problem was.

"It's an Intern job, that means I don't get paid nothing for the first 6 months, just expenses, and I can't afford to work for nothing, Charles, I got debts, and I don't think paying off me Visa bill will come under the heading of expenses somehow"

"Listen, what was it your Nan said?"

"I dunno, she said a whole load of stuff, most of it bleeding crap" Molly still hadn't forgiven Nan for giving him a less than enthusiastic welcome to the Dawes family.

"She accused me of having a bob or two" He settled her more comfortably in the crook of his arm and tucked her damp curls behind her ears "I might not be as loaded as she thinks I am, or be the rich old bugger your sister called me" He laughed "But you're only little, you don't eat much and you don't take up much space, hardly know you're here most of the time, so just tell them _yes_ , tell them you'll do it, I presume you want to do it"

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do, I never promise anything I don't mean, well only to the lads when I promise to torture them and that's more of a threat" He laughed to show he was teasing "I want you to stay and I want you to be happy, well, as long as you make it worth my while, of course"

"Thought I already did that, just now before I had me bath"

"Well yes, but that was an hour ago at least"

"Piss off"

"You love me really, you know you do"

"Yeah, I know I do, well most of the time anyhow, almost as much as you love yourself, you think you're so bleeding funny"

"Well I am" He smirked "And you, don't forget, I love you as well"

"Yeah, well alright, and me"

-OG-

She stared at the doctor, dumbfounded, unable to believe what this woman had just told her; in fact she'd had to ask her three times whether she was absolutely sure, whether it was possible that she might be making some sort of mistake, getting it wrong.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely reviews and reassurances. My wobbles come from the fact that I did, as usual, write the whole thing before I started publishing, just going back to edit and tweak bits, but after the Paris thing I felt that the story, as I'd written it, was too close to reality so had to scrap a lot of it and do a major re-write, which proved difficult. I kept on thinking back to the original, couldn't get it out of my noodle, and therefore kept on doubting version 2.**_

 _ **Anyone got any suggestions for dealing with a puppy who is supposed to be a hound but who absolutely refuses to get her feet wet. I know you can get little bootie type things for dogs, but 'he who must be obeyed' says there is no way he's going out for a walk with a dog wearing wellies!**_


	19. Chapter 19

"No mistake, Miss Dawes, none at all" The doctor was emphatic in her reassurance as she smiled obviously sure she was imparting good news "There's nothing at all for you to worry about, I'll give you a prescription now for some iron tablets, follow the instructions and here's a" The doctor rifled through a pile of leaflets on her desk "Diet sheet, you just need to concentrate on improving your diet, eating more green vegetables that sort of thing, well, it's all on here" She waved the leaflet at Molly "Make an appointment to see the nurse for another blood test in say a month or so and then you can make another appointment to see me if there are still concerns"

Molly had nodded, speechless as she'd left the surgery clutching her prescription and leaflet without making another appointment to see anyone, she didn't know how she felt, relieved or furious that the bloody doctor had just taken a bleeding machete to her daydreams.

The trouble was that she'd been convinced that there couldn't be any other explanation, apart from diseases she didn't even want to think about, ever since she'd looked up all that sodding stuff on the net, well, that would teach her to believe what she read on there. Even the doctor had said it was possible, and that was why they needed to do the test and anyhow, although she hadn't said anything, she'd had this niggling memory of that first night they'd been together. She'd woken up in the early hours pissed and desperately needing a pee, so pissed she hadn't been able to remember for the life of her whether she'd taken the bastard thing or not, and then, because she had this habit of taking no notice of the days marked on the pack, she'd decided that she more than likely _had_ taken it, that it was her _habit,_ and then she'd got distracted by the warm and more than willing body in the bed with her and had stopped thinking about it.

Being so convinced that she was up the duff meant she'd almost laughed in the doctor's face when the woman said about it being the most likely cause of anaemia, especially in someone of her age who was 'sexually active', a phrase that always made Molly want to giggle. This moment had been on the back of her mind for more than a week now and she sat there knowing that the word 'positive' would be out of this woman's mouth any minute. Scant periods, bouts of nausea, tiredness, well exhaustion really, and the bit of extra weight which she'd originally thought was from too much pasta, all seemed to have a bloody obvious cause now, but it hadn't, the word she heard next was 'negative'. It wasn't true and she was totally gobsmacked, she'd been so sure.

She didn't know whether or not she wanted a baby, on the whole she thought not and in any case, she'd been bloody terrified that her lifestyle would've damaged it in some way. Okay, so she didn't smoke, and hadn't touched anything illegal since Grace had gone home, but she'd carried on drinking and taking the pill so it was obviously for the best that she'd got it wrong, so why didn't it feel like that? If it had been true she'd have been more than twelve weeks gone by now, and they'd both been well pissed that night and what with that and feeding the poor little bleeder a steady diet of red wine and Retzina, with the occasional glass of vodka thrown in, together with hormone pills, it would most likely have had something wrong with it ….

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucketty fuck ….."

Sitting on the bus going home she realised that people were avoiding sitting anywhere near her because she was acting like she had Tourettes or was plastered or a nutter or something, swearing out loud and not inside her head as she'd thought. The thing that was worrying her the most, and there were plenty of things worrying her, was why she was so disappointed about something she hadn't even been sure she wanted. There was also the fact that she'd taken an unpaid job because she'd thought she'd have other stuff to be getting on with, and she couldn't just live off of anyone for months, not even Charles and he was the biggest worry of all. She had no idea whether or not she should tell him, although why she would even think of showing him what a fuckmuppet she could be was beyond her.

It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Grace, only the thought that Charles should be the first to hear the 'happy' news had stopped her, so that she couldn't be more relieved now that she'd kept her big fat gob shut.

-OG-

All her ideas of keeping it to herself, of thinking it through to see whether it was a good idea to tell him, or how the fuck she was going to do it anyhow, vanished the moment he walked through the door so that she blurted it out before he'd even taken his boots off and then promptly burst into tears.

"What? What the hell? What did the doctor say? I didn't know that … Is she sure? I thought …. "

He scratched his neck as she anxiously scanned his face looking for any signs of anger or resentment, completely forgetting that he'd had no idea about all the crap she'd been persuading herself was real, she hadn't said a dicky bird about any of it, so in the event he just looked a bit bewildered.

"Yeah, well seems like I was a bit wrong, dunnit? Or a lot wrong, sorry"

"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault is it?" He stroked her hair where it was hanging down her back, her face was buried against his armpit as she cried and sniffed and soaked his shirt with her tears "I didn't know that you wanted a baby, you didn't say and what's more you didn't say that you thought you were pregnant, it would have been quite nice to have known"

"Sorry, it was only after they did that blood test in Greece and I thought …..well I didn't know, I still don't really, whether I wanted it to be true or not, well not until that cow at the surgery told me that it weren't" She sniffed loudly "I were gonna tell you, honest, but I was waiting till everything was all sorted 'n that, fuckmuppet, that's me"

Charles snorted a laugh down his nose "No you're not, there is one good thing though, a silver lining if you like, you don't have to tell your Nan that we've been out and bought a pot plant"

"That's true, but I weren't gonna be the one to tell her anyhow, I thought you could do that"

"Oh, thanks"

She thought for a moment and then bit her lip as the tears dried up and she felt this sudden and overwhelming urge to giggle, whether from amusement or hysteria or sheer relief she wouldn't know "And what about your lot, they haven't even met me, what the hell would they have thought? I dunno, it probably is for the best, innit?" the giggle disappeared as she willed him not to agree with her as her attempt at bravery set off a fresh bout of sobs.

"Hey, no more tears, I'm already soaked to the bloody skin and I don't want to get pneumonia" He held her away from him and pulled his wet shirt away from his body, then wiped the tears from under her eyes with his thumb. He couldn't help a quiet and very private chuckle at the thought of what his parents would've had to say to him, they'd never met Molly so they didn't know how different she was from Rebecca, they'd have just been horrified at the thought that history was about to repeat itself.

He gave her his most wicked smirk then snorted a short laugh down his nose "Well, what are you waiting for? You'd better get your knickers off then"

"What? What the hell did you just bloody say?"

"If you're sure you want me to get you pregnant, I mean I obviously can't if you've still got your knickers on, can I?"

"Bloody hell, Charles James, day before yesterday it was _you've got ten minutes_ and now it's _get your knickers off,_ what the fuck?" She couldn't help the little giggle that escaped even as she tried to sound furious with him.

"Made you laugh though, didn't it?"

He tightened his arms round her then bent his head to kiss her as she tried very hard not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her laugh. He carried on kissing, tiny kisses dotted all over her face and on her closed and swollen eyelids, then down her neck, undoing the tiny buttons on her shirt and kissing her flesh as it was exposed.

-OG-

Their discussion about her job and whether she could live off him while she did it ended abruptly when he reminded her that he hadn't had the first idea of what had been going on in her head when they'd agreed about it, and that they weren't going to change anything at all now. Apart from that, he insisted they hadn't got time for any row because it was Friday night and they had an obligation to go to the pub and get pissed with the neighbours.

The one neighbour Molly could have done without turning up did just that, so that she had to keep repeating 'Flora, Flora, her bleeding name's Flora' in her head making sure she wouldn't forget and call her Floosie. Flora had apparently been away somewhere or so she said, but to Molly her tan looked more like it came out of a bottle or from a sunbed than from the South of France, but she had to admit that she might just be a tiny bit biased.

"Flora" She smiled sweetly as she acknowledged the other woman, congratulating herself on getting the name right, she'd come within a whisper of calling her Flossie, she knew it wasn't Floosie, but her thought processes were a little marred by the large quantity of Jaegerbombs she'd swallowed, her private compensation for not getting 'caught', a drink Charles said reminded him of his dad's herbal cough mixture.

"Sorry, I forget your name, you are?" She smiled just as sweetly as Molly had done and they both knew she was lying, there was no way she'd ever forget Molly's name, it would have been engraved on her soul.

"This is Molly, she's just come back from Greece, just moved in" Just for a second, Molly actually felt sorry for the other girl, Charles' words must have come as a real hammer blow, well, judging from the expression on her face they had, although Molly's sympathy didn't last very long. She'd be the first one to admit that she wasn't that nice, especially when she'd had a few drinks.

"That's nice, ummm….. welcome … umm…Molly …..umm… , if you'll excuse me?" Floosie did her best to hold it together as she turned and walked towards the Ladies and for a moment Molly considered following her to see if she was okay, but then thought that on the whole she wouldn't, she wasn't sure that her concern would be that welcome.

They eventually met for a chat when Molly made her very unsteady way into the Ladies an hour or so later, Flora was in there again, or she might have still been in there from before, Molly had no idea.

After an incredibly long pee, during which she was sure the other woman would surely have pissed off; Molly was disappointed to see that she was still standing by the wash basins looking at herself in the mirror. Molly could have just left, walked out, been seen to be a slut who didn't wash her hands after, but couldn't bring herself to do that, however much she wanted to avoid a one-to-one in her current state of sobriety.

"He'll get bored you know, you're so much younger than his usual type" Flora looked closely at her face in the mirror then wiped an imaginary speck of mascara from under one eye "You're really nothing like his other women, although I'll admit you've probably got some novelty value"

Molly's first reaction was _'cow'_ and then considered slapping her; no-one would blame her surely? but she wasn't too sure she wouldn't miss if she went for it, the stupid slapper seemed to be swaying about all over the place for some reason, making it hard to take aim.

"I know" she smirked at their reflections side by side in the mirror "but he never got around to looking at you though, did he?" She laughed out loud "Just a bit of a tip, floo ….. Flora, if I was you I'd watch that sunbathing, can make you look old"

It wasn't the wittiest comment she could have made, she knew that, but it was the absolute best she could do in the circumstances, bearing in mind that her brain was AWOL, but it seemed to do the trick because it wiped the smirk off of Flossie's gob. Molly's triumphant flounce out of the Ladies was somewhat spoilt by her cannoning off the hand dryer, but still she was happy enough with herself when she re-joined Charles and treated him to one of her best wicked smiles, which worried him a bit, she only usually smiled like that when she'd been up to something.

When she'd finished throwing up that night, she'd persuaded Charles to put the flat on the market, to sell it so that they could move somewhere where there wasn't some snooty cow looking down her nose and making snide comments about how she didn't stack against his other women, whoever the hell they were. He'd been lovely to her, rubbing her back and then holding her hair out of the way of her self-inflicted misery, then wiping her face with a damp cloth and promising that they'd move as soon as they could, even though there wasn't a shred of truth in anything Flora had said, but Molly had known that anyway.

-OG-

The job at the Family Tracing unit was nothing like she'd expected, in fact, by the end of the first week she was convinced that she wouldn't be able to stick it for six weeks let alone six months. It was nothing like she was used to, nothing hands on at all, it was all searching through lists of names on data bases from the front line, where she should be. The lists of names were sometimes a bit sketchy on detail, proper full names, ages, places of origin, things like that, and Molly now felt guilty for all the times she'd been so busy she'd skipped filling in the forms properly.

Not only was she very unsure about what the hell she was doing sitting in a Baker Street office which was dingy and stuffy when she was used to standing in the sunshine on the Mediterranean coast, but she found the travelling a bit crap as well. She was a Londoner for fuck sake, it was in her DNA, so why did she find the tube so bloody hot and stuffy, so crowded and dirty and packed full of loads of smelly people who could use a deodorant or a good wash at the very least. She didn't say anything to Charles, it felt a bit ungrateful somehow, but it also felt like she was marking time till she could go back to her proper job.

Her saving grace was that they'd sold the flat, or Charles had, as soon as it had gone up for sale and they'd found and were about to move into a Victorian cottage with a long thin garden in Shamley Green, somewhere Molly called Shambles Green. She'd held him to his promise and had actually threatened to leave home if she had to keep on seeing Floosie every day; she was convinced that the woman was stalking her.

The breakthrough with her job came the first time she matched some children in the UK with their mother who was in Macedonia and was asked to sort out the reunion, something that had made her laugh and cry all at the same time, although nothing would ever come close to being a front line aid worker.

-OG-

Putting a brave face on things and trying to pretend that it wasn't crucifying him hadn't fooled her at all, she knew just how much effort he was having to put in and she could see much it hurt for him to listen to Sam's excited chatter about his new school and living in a new house with his new little sister where there was lots of snow in the winter and how he was going to learn to ski. They'd spent the weekend picking out paint and stuff for Sam's bedroom and deciding on the best spot in the garden for a climbing frame and then eating junk food and too many sweets and Molly had wanted to cry for him. Sam, of course, had no real understanding of the separation to come, or the distances involved, the little boy just kept on trying to wheedle his dad into getting him a dog because there was a big garden with lots of space and he could play with it when he came for the weekend.

"It'll be okay" She put her hand on his arm, but even as she said it she was asking herself how the fuck she would know, she'd got no idea what he was going through. Watching him was breaking her heart.

"I know, it's just a bit….." He shrugged and tried to smile, chewing the inside of his lip "I might go for a bit of a walk"

"Do you wanna be on your own?"

He looked at her for a very long moment, then smiled, crinkling his eyes up and put his hand out, wrapping her fingers up in his "Come with me"

 _ **Postscript**_

"What's up?"

"Just wondered whether you'd like to come over and see us, come and stop for a bit of an holiday, see the new house 'n that?"

Molly was sitting in the garden with a large glass of wine in her hand as she'd Skyped Grace who was sitting in her baking hot office, or dungeon as she called it, face flushed and blonde hair limp with perspiration. Air conditioning was seen as some sort of an obscene luxury by the charity bosses so that sitting on a shaded patio in a bikini definitely made Molly that day's winner in the environment competition they had going on.

"You can bring Josef" She giggled "He can even share your room if you ask nicely"

"Ask who ….. you or him?"

"Sorry, kinda thought you wouldn't have to ask him" She giggled and got to the reason behind her call "I've already picked out this yellow satin frock for you to wear"

"WTF? Why would I wanna be seen dead in some gross yellow satin frock?"

"It's not gross …. well … not very" She giggled "and bridesmaids aren't allowed to look better than the bride, are they? I think it's the law"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Either everyone out there is very broody or it's just the thought of 'who's the daddy?" I didn't want this to be a 'patter of tiny feet' ending, I didn't think they'd been together long enough and were, in fact, still finding about each other.**_

 _ **Thank you for all the support I've had writing this, you're all stars. Please review this last chapter for me, I've got a germ of an idea for my next outing, but I need encouragement to see how many euphemisms I can come up with otherwise it may have to go to the 'M' side. I don't usually do smut, still always a first time for everything I suppose.**_


	20. Chapter 20

_**Authors Notes: This is a bonus chapter that I wrote last night and finished this morning because it was my way of dealing with a demolition job that someone saw fit to send me, anonymous of course, but then aren't spiteful people always anonymous? Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the people who sent me reviews saying lovely things about this story, and to the FB group who were so supportive last night when I was doing my muppet bit, but however hard we try to forget them we always remember the bad things people say don't we?**_

 _ **I know some folks would say you have to be able to take criticism when you put yourself out there, and I'm sure that's right, but if you don't like something then just don't read it, or as my mum always said, if you can't say anything nice, say nothing. I decided to do the one thing that would help me the most, which was to write something and publish it straight away; otherwise I think I might possibly have given up.**_

"So, what have pot plants gotta do with the price of fish?"

"No, Nan, nothing at all really, sorry, I were just saying that we don't have to get married or nothing, that we wanna get married"

Molly couldn't help giggling, wondering whether she should remind Nan of their previous conversation on the subject of Charles and her and them being together and then decided it probably wasn't really for the best to go over old ground and to keep her gob shut "I just meant that I'm not pregnant, we're gonna get married cos I love him and he loves me and we wanna be together"

"Well, I thought you was living together already, although it ain't been that long 'as it? just a few months and you think on young lady, you just remember that he's been round the block before and I'm bleeding sure that he told her that he loved her and that he wanted _them_ to be married and for _them_ to be together for ever, and see where things are now"

"Nan, you're saying that like he were the one what decided to leave, but he was off fighting in a bloody war at the time, you know doing dangerous stuff in the army" Molly had her fingers firmly crossed in the back pockets of her jeans "And then his wife went and had a kid by some other bloke and she's living in Canada with him now, got married again, and they've taken Charles' little boy with them, which is breaking his heart, so can't you be nice just for once? And you don't have to tell him that I've told you all that neither" Molly knew that Charles would be mortified if he could hear her turning him into a victim of some sort by bending the timeline more than somewhat but needs must …. as Nan had told her on a million different occasions.

"Well, I suppose there aint gonna be much I can say that would stop you anyhow, is there? You're just like me when you decide on summat" She shook her head as Molly thought God forbid, before her grandmother went on "Just tell me that he's a good 'un and I'll try me very best, can't say any fairer than that, now can I?"

"Of course he is Nan, thank you, thank you, you'll love him when you get to know him"

"He's easy on the eye, I'll give you that, and as you know, Molls, I quite like blokes with pretty faces, that bloke I should of married, not yer granddad, now he had a pretty face …"

Molly knew that that was as close as she was ever going to get to any sort of apology or climb down from her grandmother and that it was probably best to shut up now and let it go. A wedding without Nan making her usual caustic comments about everybody and everything was something she didn't want to even think about but she also knew that Nan would be nice to Charles from now on, well, in her own peculiar way, and would be the first to jump to his defence if anyone had a pop at him. Her mum and dad would be fine, her dad wouldn't care very much who she married as long as it didn't cost him anything and her mum seemed to quite like Charles, as far as she was concerned he was good looking, clean, nice and polite, a proper gent, and most important of all, he had a bob or two in the bank. That alone made him perfect as far as Belinda was concerned, she had spent more than enough of her life with a bloke who thought you could keep house and bring up your kids on bleeding promises and fresh air.

-OG-

"I don't want to be difficult or anything and I promise you that I'm not being a drama queen, but why the fuck didn't you tell me that both your sisters are titchy and micro fairy sized like you and that I was gonna stick out like a frigging totem pole walking down the aisle with three of you?"

"Are you bloody whinging again? And you're always a drama queen, it's one of the things I love about you" Molly patted Grace's arm "They're me bleeding sisters so course we're all gonna be the same sort of height, aren't we? 'n I've already changed the colours so that you didn't have to wear yellow, bloody fussy Yank, I mean Jade told me she hated the pink you chose, but I told her she'd have to bleeding well put up with it"

"Yes, but she's your sister, she has to put up with it"

"Gracie, do me a huge favour, will you? cos I'm already all bloody stressed here"

"What?"

"Shut the fuck up"

"You know, your language has really gone down the john since you got with Captain Gorgeous"

"I think you might find it's the other way round actually, that his has gone down the bog since he got with me, or have you forgotten the me from before? Cos I think I'm a lot better now since I got with him"

"I hadn't noticed"

"You gonna stop whinging and tell me about Josef and why the fuck he's not here? I thought he was going to take some time off and let us see whether he's good enough for you, sort of dummy run for meeting your mum"

"Yes well, I don't think he's gonna be round long enough to meet my mom, it's not going that well to be honest"

"Really? Oh shit"

"That pretty much describes it" Grace took a deep breath and wiped a suspicious bit of moisture from under her eyes "Don't worry Molly, I won't freak and start shouting _'this should of been me'_ when you're walking down the aisle"

"You'd better not, not if you wanna live" Molly put her arm round her friend and squeezed "And hotels don't have aisles, well not in England they don't"

"Whatever"

"Hey are we allowed to slag him off yet, cos I never thought he was good enough for you anyhow, wanker"

"You've never met him"

"Saw his picture though didn't I? He's got squinty eyes, I don't trust blokes with piggy eyes"

"The sun was in his eyes"

"Hey, tell you what Gracie" Molly decided to ignore the issue of Josef's eyes and the sun "There'll be loads of army blokes there tomorrow, friends of Charles, so you can fill your boots, can't you? be a bit of a bonus, cos then you can go home saying "Josef? Who the fuck is he?"

Grace had started to giggle despite the fact that she was still a bit upset. She wasn't ready to listen to the worst of 'brand Molly' insults yet, or for her suggestions for a solution to heartache which she knew would include sinking a whole lot of booze and some behaviour that her mother definitely wouldn't approve of. Grace had thought that Joey could be the one, that it would be her turn soon for wedding bells, even if the thought of introducing him to her mother had filled her with cold dread. Josef would certainly not be her mom's idea of Prince Charming, and now that they were on the 'outs' she was beginning to wonder whether that had been part of his attraction for her.

"What, you think I'm shallow do you?"

"Nah … well yeah …. nah, course not, you're normal, you're just like me"

"Shit"

-OG-

"How do I look" Molly twirled in front of her mirror as her three bridesmaids watched her.

"Okay, you look okay" "You look good"

Her sisters spoke at once, both following the usual Dawes family habit of understated responses, it was as if they all, Molly included, were on some sort of mission to make sure no-one ever got too big-headed or carried away with themselves.

Grace looked at them both, her eyebrows shooting upwards in disbelief at the casual tone of what she'd just heard.

"You look frigging gorgeous, I hate you" Molly and Grace both giggled "You know what? he's gonna have a heart attack when he sees you"

"Shit, hope not, I'd quite like him to stick around for a bit" Molly turned back to look at herself in the mirror and caught Grace's eye "Long way from bleeding Turkey innit?"

"Well, I don't want to say "told you so' but I did, didn't I? Over and over. All that brooding moodiness when you wouldn't put that frigging vest on and the way you kept calling him Rambo. I could see it a mile off, the way the two of you looked at each other and I remember telling you, but you just kept on saying that he didn't make your bits twitch"

"Alright, smartarse" Molly pulled a warning face at Grace and shot an anxious and somewhat embarrassed glance at Jade and Bella, it was one thing talking about your sex life to a mate, but another thing entirely to do it in front of your little sisters, even if they most probably had more varied and experienced sex lives than you did.

-OG-

"You look bloody amazing, Mrs. James, absolutely beautiful, or have I told you that already?"

"Once or twice, but don't let that stop you saying it again though will you?"

"You look beautiful; I can't believe how lucky I am"

"Are you fishing for compliments?" She giggled "Cos you bloody know that I'm the lucky one, that you're known as Captain Gorgeous"

"Only by you, and you didn't think that when you first met me, did you?"

"You didn't think much of me neither"

"Didn't I? Actually, I thought you were bloody gorgeous, bit of a challenge of course"

"Am I still?"

"What gorgeous? Bloody right you are"

"Nah, a bit of a challenge"

"Nope" he held her away at arm's length and grinned at her, his face a mask of happiness "Why? Do you want to be?"

"No"

"How soon do you reckon we can get out of here? We've spoken to everyone, we've had photos taken, cut the cake, drunk too much champagne, been nice to people we don't really like and I want to go to bed with my wife ….. now"

"Well you can't, not just yet" Molly put her hand up and stroked his cheek gently, basking in the expression in his brown eyes "Anyhow, waiting out is good for you"

"Who says?"

"Come on, let's go and get Sammie and we can walk round with him, make sure we've introduced him to everyone"

Charles' parents had made the trip to Ottawa to collect their grandson and bring him over for his father's wedding; an action that had made Molly love them even more than she already did if that was even possible. She'd been very nervous before she'd met them, absolutely sure that they'd look down on her because of how posh they were, but they'd made a surprise visit to Shamley Green one Saturday afternoon, just turned up out of the blue when Charles had been on a duty weekend so wasn't at home, but they didn't seem to mind that he wasn't there. They'd been bearing housewarming gifts and a big bunch of flowers, huge smiles and hugs and vegetables from their garden and had kept on saying how happy they were that Charles was happy, especially his mum, who was pretty tight lipped on the subject of Rebecca. When she and Charles had visited Bath, and had stayed in a house that was designed to make anyone totally awestruck, although she'd privately thought she wouldn't like to have to clean it, Molly had found out that Charles' mum hated his first wife with an absolute passion.

Sam was going back to Bath with his grandparents after the wedding was over, but just for a couple of days, and then he was coming back to Shambles Green for a week before they took him home and spent a week in Canada on a sort of delayed honeymoon.

"Your Nan's being remarkably nice; it's beginning to worry me a bit"

"Nah, don't worry about it, told you she'd come round given a bit of time, didn't I?"

Shit, Molly knew she should have warned Nan not to overdo the 'being nice' bit, although Nan being Nan she probably wouldn't have taken any notice of anything Molly had said anyway, she was always a law unto herself.

"Couldn't have anything to do with something you've said to her, could it?"

"Me? Nah, don't think so, can't think of nothing"

Double shit, what the fuck had Nan been saying to him? Molly cast around frantically for a change of subject, she didn't want to start off her married life by telling her husband great big porkies, but she definitely wasn't going to tell him what she and Nan had talked about either.

"Did I tell you that Grace and that bloke of hers are on the skids, he's behaved like a total shit, so I sort of suggested that someone here, you know, one of your mates, could perhaps be a bit of therapy for her, Grace is very into therapy"

"Is that a euphemism?"

"Yes and no" Molly giggled "Grace is into all that self-help and therapy crap, but that wasn't quite what I was talking about"

"Mrs. James I'm shocked"

"Nah, you're not"

"No you're right, I'm not" He laughed "I'll see what I can do"

"No, you won't, not you, I weren't talking about you, muppet, you're mine and don't you bleeding well forget it"

"I know" He tossed his head back, then winked at her, face alight with happiness "Lucky, aren't I?


End file.
